


drugs don't work, The

by spookyawards_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-30
Updated: 2003-09-30
Packaged: 2019-04-27 06:10:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14419302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyawards_archivist/pseuds/spookyawards_archivist
Summary: Mulder finds himself the victim of a lifethreatening illness and is prepared to do whatever it takes to survive.





	drugs don't work, The

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Spooky Awards](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spooky_Awards), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [SpookyAwards' collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/spookyawards/profile).

 

The drugs don't work

## The drugs don't work

### by Humbuggie

The drugs don't work  
By Humbuggie  
2003-01-03 

Note from the author: Once upon a time I wrote my very first fanfiction. It was 1996 and I was an Internet-newbie, attempting her first fic. 

I never posted this story on my website or anywhere else before (except for a mailing list a long, long time ago), and had actually completely forgotten about it until I dug it up a few months ago. 

Since `96, our favourite characters have changed quite a bit, and so did this story. So I did a rewrite. This updated story takes place a few months after season seven sans "Requiem", and toys with the storyline of Mulder's supposed brain tumor. 

Spoilers for Biogenesis, Sixth Extinction I and II, and a lot more mythology episodes. It is not a mythology-story, but Mulder's illness is blamed on the tests he went through during Tunguska/Terma, and the Biogenesis-trilogy. 

Type of story: Lots and lots of MT, Angst, MSR 

A few short references have been made towards the VCU, where - in my little universe - Assistant Director Davis is in charge. Just so you know. 

The drugs don't work 

All this talk of getting older, it's getting me down my love Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown; this time I'm comin' down 

And I hope you're thinking of me as you lay down on your side Now the drugs don't work; they just make you worse But I know I'll see your face again 

'Cause baby, if heaven calls, I'm coming, too Just like you said, you leave my life, I'm better off dead \-- The Verve 

Prologue 

Extract of a diary found in Washington General, hospital room of Special Agent Fox Mulder 

Scully, now that I feel myself constantly changing, I think I should write down my thoughts as you have done when you became so gravely ill. You don't know how much I have struggled over the past weeks with my illness. The drugs don't work. They just made it worse, and I so want to see your face again. 

Scully, you know how much I have changed over the years. Since I met you, I have been given new reasons to go on. After my strange childhood in Chilmark, and the destruction of happiness, there has never been anyone like you. You have kept me on guard with reasons to continue my pursuit, over and over again. Remember what I told you once: I owe you everything. You owe me nothing. That is still the truth, Scully. 

I wish I could end this note positively. But the mysteries that have endangered my family - and ultimately destroyed them - have kept me on my toes. The conspiracy you and I know so much -yet so little - of, still haunts me. I am worn down. Mentally and physically I feel that I'm not coping as well as I should. All that we have been through over these last years have forced me to reconcile with the fact that I'm not well. I know now that this was meant to be. 

I have come to realize that the truth we have sought - the one that was inside of me - has not gone. Whatever caused me to become so ill before is back and this time it's here to stay.   
I have not wanted to face the facts but now I have to. Scully, I'm ill. I'm dying. 

I thought I could challenge faith and I believed I could survive just about anything. But a cat runs out of its nine lives sooner or later and my time has come too. We have both seen and witnesses things that no ordinary man should face. We have challenged faith and often won. And we have also lost so much in the process. 

The irony of my fate is that I will not die in my desperate quest to find my sister, by a disease that has been caused by those who have manipulated this world for the past fifty years. Ultimately, they will win. The irony is that I will not die in the line of duty, having defended my cause, or as your partner, but that I will go in my own bed. I will bide my time for months, continuously wondering if there was not anything I could have done. That I will die of the illness that has kept you on the verge of death not so long ago. 

Scully, I need not tell you that I do not wish to die this way. I cannot. There is still so much to die and so much to accomplish. I did not tell you because I feared the truth, and when it was finally explained to me, it feels like I am descending into a lonely hell. 

The tumor that lives inside of me now and eats away at my good senses is constantly changing me; destroying me. It cannot be operated on. It cannot be healed. I just know that I have little time left and that the drugs don't work. I always sought the truth, Scully, and now that I have it within me I know I cannot bear it. I know I'm not strong enough to fight this. And so it is finally ends.  
But I know I'll see your face again. 

Mulder. 

Part One 

1 

That morning Fox Mulder woke up with the realization that he did not want to get up and go to work. He would have done anything to stay at home and skip a day, maybe two.   
That didn't happen a lot to a man like Mulder. Despite everything, he loved his job. It was no secret that he lived for it. There was nothing else that he wanted to do. 

But today, the extraordinary happened: for the first time Mulder admitted to himself that he was not fit to go to work. He must have been catching the flu, he thought, as he sniffled his way through a light breakfast and shower. Breakfast consisted of an old bagel and two cups of hot tea instead of his regular coffee. 

He sighed as he shoved his breakfast remains backwards, lingering on as long as he could. He could pretend to be a boring old fuddy duddy working a stupid job in some bank, he thought wry. That way he would have an excuse to go to the office. 

Looking back on it, he didn't even remember becoming ill. He had felt tired over the past few days but that was it. And the headaches that he often had did not seem to stop pounding this time.   
And he could feel his own impatience as he went out on the streets and mingled with other people: he became cross at other drivers who just would not move, people serving him at the supermarket and grocery stores, and the pizza boy when he came ten minutes late with his double pepperoni. 

He showered and shaved, and put on a suit, like every day. Driving to the J. Edgar Hoover Building, he parked his car in the lot and walked in after trying his badge three times. The security system seemed down but eventually he walked in, heading straight to the basement office. He sighed tiredly as he pushed the elevator button. Damn, those things were slow! 

He frowned, checked his watch for the tenth time and pushed the button again. No wonder he had felt like skipping today: everything just seemed to take time. 

`Agent Mulder.' Assistant-Director Skinner walked past him and looked at him as if he were examining his agent from head to toe. `Are you feeling okay today?' `Yes, sir,' Mulder groaned. `Why do you ask?' `Just checking.'   
`I'm okay. Just didn't feel like working today,' Mulder blurted out. 

Skinner frowned, re-adjusted his glasses and stopped. He didn't respond to Mulder's comment but remained where he was. Mulder felt uncomfortable under the AD's questioning glare. 

Finally, the elevator opened and he stepped in, waiting impatiently until it closed again. To his surprise Skinner stepped in as well, pushing the basement button.   
Tiredness overwhelmed Mulder as he leaned against the elevator wall. Somehow he did not think he could move another inch. 

His head pounded horribly, despite three Tylenols he had consumed over the course of the morning. He had been tired for weeks now and it just would not go away. In fact, he had been tired ever since the surgery to the brain, some time ago. That was probably when it had all started. For weeks he had believed he was still recovering, having read that some people needed up to six months of recuperating after brain surgery. But lately he felt that this could not be the cause anymore. It had been too long ago. 

Suddenly the agent realized Skinner had been talking to him all the time. `Sir?' He blinked his eyes and focused on his boss, trying to recall what he had just said. Skinner's eyes focused on his agent again. 

`I asked you what you were working on, agent Mulder. You haven't been in my office for days now. I'm coming down to see the update on whatever it is you are working on. I'm not used to this from you.' 

`Nothing major, sir. Scully and I are rearranging the office.' `Oh?'   
`Yep.'   
`Has business been that slow?'   
`I'm afraid so, sir.' 

Skinner's cell phone rang just as the elevator door opened. He glared at his 

agent as he spoke on the phone, excused himself for a moment and directed himself to Mulder.   
`I would like to see the two of you in my office at ten, Mulder. We need to discuss this.'  
`Yes, sir,' Mulder obediently responded, cursing himself for being so honest. 

`Mulder,' Scully called him over as soon as he opened the basement door. `You have received a strange email. Someone wants to talk to you. Sounds like a prankster to me, but you never know of course.' `You read my email?' Mulder flushed, raising an eyebrow in Scully-fashion to show his disapproval.   
`It just popped up while I was entering some info on your computer. I pushed the open-button by accident. My laptop is down, remember?' `And you just couldn't resist the urge to read it?' he asked, anger flaring in his mind. Was there no damned privacy left in this place? 

Scully looked at him. `Why are you on the defence? I often read your emails, as you do mine. Remember? If you're expecting something private or secretive, have it sent to your personal address, not this one.' 

Mulder felt anger flare up again as his partner very demonstratively left her seat and started rummaging through some files. He had obviously struck a sensitive cord but could not care less right now. If only that damned headache would stop kicking his ass, life would become much more bearable, he thought. 

The respective email turned out to be a short two-sentence, anonymous message. "If you're interested in saving human lives, meet me at the Boulevard Centre at 10 p.m. tonight. Don't find me, I'll find you, and come alone. I'll know who you are." 

`How mysterious,' Mulder groaned sarcastically, rubbing his face tired. `Frohike was bored again for sure.'  
`Frohike would never send something like that here, afraid someone might tap into his email address and find out he's been surfing Slash-lists,' Scully responded. `I don't think he's the one.' 

Mulder just had to take one look at his partner to know she was trying to soften him up. He could not resist her witty remark and smiled. `You're right. I'm sorry, Scully,' he gave in. 

`What's wrong with you, Mulder?' she asked worried. `You seem agitated. I've hardly ever seen you like this before. You're not drugged again, are you?' Her partner sighed and turned away from the computer, closing Outlook Express. `I don't know,' he admitted. `I'm just so tired.' `Of what?'  
`Of helping people out. Of doing this job.' 

`What?' Scully straightened her back and looked at her partner with new interest in her blue eyes. `What are you talking about, Mulder?' `I don't know. I'm just tired, Scully. Why do we keep running after every lead that's been sent to us? What is the use of it, when you don't even know what you're dealing with? When you could bump into yet another conspiracy that might cost you your life once again?' 

`Mulder,' she began slowly, sitting down on the edge of the desk as she concentrated on him. `I don't understand your sudden reaction. If this is the work of a prankster, then we waste an hour, max. But if this person is for real, is it not worth looking for him or her? A long time ago I promised you to stay with you as long as we could save lives. What has changed since then?' 

`Nothing.' Mulder turned away from her, and stared at his shivering hands. It was so cold in here. She was right: nothing had changed but his own sensibility. 

Mulder stretched his sore back, realizing that his body showed signs of the past: the scar where a bullet had struck his hip; a scar where his own partner had shot him in the shoulder; the scar that proved he had brain surgery, hidden underneath his hair; the blisters on his hand when he went to fetch children from a burning house. And there was more: so much more. Was it really all worth it?   
He had to wonder. 

`Mulder, are you feeling alright?' Scully asked. `Yeah, I'm fine.' He blinked his eyelids, focusing on the present again. `You don't like so sunny today.' 

Her partner turned towards the female agent and groaned impatiently. `Why is it that every time you ask me if I'm okay, you have this peculiar look in your eyes telling me I'm not okay even before I tell you that I am truly, honestly alright? Stop playing doctor around me, Scully. I don't like it when you do that.' 

`I'm sorry,' she said, even though her eyes were still inquisitive. `I can't help it. I know a lot about you, Mulder, but sometimes I find myself looking at you and wondering what you are thinking at that split second. You are not an open book to me, even though you think you might be.' `Should I be?' 

`No.' She hesitated. `I understand your need for privacy. But you have to understand my need to protect you. I'm your partner, and your friend. How can I not worry about you when we've been through so much?' 

`There was a time I thought you'd hardly cared,' he admitted suddenly. `When?'  
`In the beginning, before we became friends. You were so ambitious and rigid, so full of the career you were going to make, so - so determined to prove your point of the matter to me. I think that you were a partner then, but not a friend. You didn't become a friend until I got shot in the leg.' 

She smiled softly. `Sometimes it takes the near loss of another person to realize how much that person means to you.' He looked at her. `Are you getting soft on me, Scully?' `No,' she smiled again. `Are you?'  
`No.'  
`Good, then let's get on with our work, shall we? If you are ready to go?' She looked tense into her partner's eyes, waiting for that approval she so needed to make sure he was doing well, and he nodded, delivering the reassuring smile, she ached for. For a few moments there she had chased away the cobwebs in his mind. 

Mulder watched her as she printed out the email, and created a new file, unnamed file. They had so many files in that office, Mulder thought. And yet not a single one of them seemed to be resolved. It hurt. It ached badly and made him furious at times. He was tired of dealing with strange creatures, abominations, abnormalities, strange events and horrible facts. And now that he knew the truth about my sister, what was the point of moving forward? Did he really still believe he could stop a possible invasion? 

After all these years, the Bureau did still not take them seriously. Their funding had gone down and their expenses were carefully monitored. Mulder didn't care one bit for Kersh. Then again, lately he didn't feel he was much of a judge of characters.   
Lately he felt he was walking around in a desert, and everybody was offering him water, but somehow he couldn't get to it. 

`So,' Scully said, turning towards him, `what's next?' `We'd better come up with something,' he said thoughtfully. `Or Skinner will be going through the roof by ten.'  
`Better get a move on then.'  
She sat down at her side of the desk and started scanning through a few dossiers they had left lying around.   
He smiled, watching her as she read newspaper clippings out loud. 

2 

When they walked into Skinner's office at ten, Scully handed their boss a few potential cases they would seek funding for. They were older cases and not so important but at least they would be off their feet, working. Skinner checked them both thoroughly, chose the one with the lady who claimed her father had been abducted by aliens - what Mulder had expected - and gave them permission. Neither of them spoke of the mysterious email. 

`Mulder, could you stay for another moment?' Skinner called as they turned to leave.  
Scully gave her partner a `Be careful what you say-`look and left. Skinner left his place behind the desk and settled down on the edge of it, making Mulder uncomfortable. Usually, when Skinner did this, it was time for a heart-to-heart, Mulder thought with a grin. 

`Agent Mulder, it seems that you have lost a bit of your enthusiasm lately. This is the first time in seven years that I have had to ask you to come into my office to discuss a case. Are you certain everything's alright?' `To be honest, it isn't, sir,' he agreed. 

Skinner stared at him surprised as he had obviously expected him to deny everything.   
`What is wrong, Mulder?'   
`I don't know, sir. I've been having it hard getting up in the morning lately and doing this job. I can't even blame it on the weather as we're having a soft winter.'   
`Are you feeling under the weather?'  
`I guess so. I've even started taking vitamin pills.' `Then it must be serious. Do you need some time off to recuperate and come back with a fresh mind?'  
`No, sir. I would go stir at home. I'm not feeling ill or anything.' `Is there anything I can do?'  
Mulder delivered his best smile. `No, sir. I'm sure it will pass.' 

Around noon Mulder's head was about to explode. He took a couple more Tylenols and locked himself in the bathroom, throwing ice-cold water in his face. 

When Scully took him out for lunch in the small coffee shop near the office, again she glared at him with that "look" on her face. She was examining her partner thoroughly. Mulder could not know that Scully felt a sense of urgency inside of her she could not explain, as if she was missing something. She could not know that he felt the same way and was terrified to find out what the problem might be. 

`I think you should go home, Mulder,' she proposed. `You're not feeling okay, I can tell by the rings under your eyes. Don't be stubborn.' `I'm not being -' he stopped. `I just don't want to miss that appointment tonight.'   
`Tonight is still a long time,' she argued. `Go home and get some rest. I'll call you around eight, okay?' 

He should have said no to the offer but did not. If he were honest with himself he would admit he was glad to have a reason to go home.   
`Thanks,' he merely said and moved to leave. `Mulder.' She stopped him before he had the chance to leave. `At least go see another doctor if you don't want me to worry. You really look terrible.' 

`What's the matter Scully?' he quipped, `don't you like my tie?' She made a slick remark and watched her partner leave. Then she picked up the tab. Mulder drove home, as a good, obedient boy would do, and walked into his apartment.   
As he lay down on the familiar couch, he instantly fell asleep. 

The phone rang but for moments Mulder thought it was still a dream. He had been engulfed in horrendous dreams with Kersh chasing him with an axe. It took him a while to move up and grab the phone. 

`Oh, Mulder, I thought you had left,' he heard his partner say, `it took you a while to pick up.'   
`What time is it?' her partner groaned. `Nearly nine. I tried to call you earlier but you didn't answer your phone or your cell phone. How are you feeling?'  
`I'm okay,' he said even though his head seemed ready to explode. `Just give a moment to clear my head here.'   
`Good, I'll pick you up in a few minutes, if you still want to go, that is.' He couldn't even remember where they were going. `Fine,' He just said. 

A click and she was gone. Mulder moved up, swaying on his feet. Slowly he changed into a jeans and black turtleneck sweater. It seemed cold enough for a long, comfortable overcoat so he grabbed that one and almost forget to strap his gun. Damn it, he was getting old. 

His partner picked him up a couple of minutes after nine. `You still look like you are catching up on a lot of sleep,' she said, putting her hand on his forehead. `You're feverish too. Have you seen a doctor?' He grinned. `Do you want me to lie?'  
`Mulder,' she sighed. `You're a lousy patient. It's because of people like you I refused to practise medicine. You do know that, don't you?' 

He turned to her. `It's thanks to my overwhelming friendship and influence that you are sitting here next to me, able to drive and give smug remarks, agent Scully.'  
`That fever obviously has not floored you enough,' she smiled. `You're still as witty as ever. I'm glad to see you're feeling a tad better. For a moment there I thought I'd have to pick you up off the streets, swaying around delirious.' `Nah, I wouldn't do that to you.'  
`To yourself, you mean. You don't honestly think that a lightweight like me would be able to pick up a man who's a lot taller and firmer than me and carry him in my arms to the hospital? I would drop you like a log, Mulder, causing a concussion to add to your problems.'   
`And I'm sure that I would enjoy your pampering afterwards, Scully.' She gave him her best smile. 

3 

The night was chilly, even at the Boulevard Centre. Or was it? Mulder didn't see Scully suffer from the cold. Oh no, she seemed to be enjoying the weather, standing there with open jacket. A little more and she would be sunbathing in the moonlight, stripping from her winter coat and pretending as if she was used to frost bite, he thought bitterly. 

Ten p.m. passed, and so did a lot of people. No one talked to the agents or tried to get their attention. They were alone out there, wallowing in misery. At least Mulder was.   
Around eleven, Scully turned to him, fed up with waiting. `This is ridiculous,' she groaned. `This must be the worst joke anyone's ever pulled on us. Let's get some coffee and warm up. It's getting too chilly to my liking.' 

`I'm with you there,' Mulder agreed happily and followed her to a nearby diner that served around the clock. She ordered two cups of coffee and two pieces of cake. He did not touch his. 

`So it was a prankster,' Scully spoke, hungrily stuffing her mouth with cake. `This is delicious, Mulder. You should try it.' `I'm not really hungry.'   
`Can I have yours then?'   
He shoved it in her direction. `Go ahead.' They sat in comfortable silence as she devoured the second piece of cake. 

`Mulder,' she looked at her partner with hesitation. `Did you mean what you said earlier: that you have enough of saving lives?' He stared at her, confused by her sudden question. `I don't know. Maybe. A long time ago you told me I didn't have a life and the truth is that you're right: I truly don't. I spend what little time I have doing things that people laugh at. And I keep on wondering why I'm doing it.' `Why now? After all these years?' 

`I don't know. I always thought The X-Files were my life but lately I've been questioning that. After I found Samantha, after we got hurt one time too many. I don't know. I think I want to do something else but I don't even know if I can.' `Then what would you like to do, give the chance?' `Cut back on the workload. Have quiet, normal days, like today. I honestly don't know.' 

`You're different, Mulder,' she remarked. `What has happened to make you change your mind like this?'  
He sighed. `I don't know. I feel different. And this headache just keeps on coming. My head pounds constantly. I just want to rest, Scully.' 

Her facial expression changed from question to worry and this time Mulder did nothing to persuade her he was honestly okay. As they sat in the car, she drove him home silently.   
They stopped at his apartment. Instead of driving on like she normally did, she parked the car, switched off the engine and stepped out with him. `What are you doing, Scully?' he asked curiously. `I'm staying with you tonight,' she insisted. `You're not well.' `I'm fine, Scully.'  
`Stop arguing or I'll strap you down.' She grinned, but the worry in her face was obvious. Mulder wished he could tell her to stop doing that but Mulder was sick, and he knew it. And he ached for someone to take care of him, and to pamper him. There was something seriously wrong with him and he did not want to admit that. Not yet. 

She checked his temperature.   
`102,' she said, `enough to get me worried. Lie down; I'll get you something to drink.'  
Her partner lay down on his couch, wondering where she would sleep. He did not stay awake long enough to find that out. He fell asleep before she even came back with the glass of water, satisfied in the realization that she would be with him. 

When he woke up, he saw her: half lying, half sitting in the club chair near the window. She had spent the night that way. 

4 

Despite Scully's objections, Mulder drove to work that day, taking his own car. She went home first, to change into some fresh clothes and agreed to meet him at the office, despite her own insistence that he should not come. But the fever was down a bit and Mulder knew he had to snap out of it. He was fine as long as he told himself that. 

She looked tired and beat when she left. Mulder imagined a night in that chair wasn't all that fun but she waved away his apologies and told him she was happy she had stayed over. At least now she could stop worrying. 

Skinner was waiting for the agent in the basement office. To his shock he was sitting on Mulder's chair, staring directly at the desktop computer that had been turned on. He had been reading his emails as well, Mulder thought angrily. `I should start changing passwords,' Mulder remarked dryly as he entered. 

Skinner ignored that remark. `Mulder, good see you're up and about again. Where were you last night?'  
`Sir?'   
`You were supposed to meet someone last night. Were you there?' `How do you know that, sir?'  
`Just tell me the truth, Agent Mulder.' 

`Agent Scully and I were following up a lead I received through my email,' Mulder admitted reluctantly, assuming Skinner had this information from his email. `A man asked us to meet him at the Boulevard Centre. He didn't show up.' `Why didn't you inform me about this yesterday?' `We had nothing to go on to assume this was a valid lead, sir. It turned out to be a prankster, as we had expected. Our mystery guest did not show up.' `That's because he was found dead last night.' 

`Sir?' Mulder stared at my boss in disbelief. `Washington P.D. got a lead on a mugging last night,' Skinner explained. `A young man with the name of Simon Fuller died during a struggle. He was stabbed to death. When the police went to inform his family, his mother told them that Simon knew his life was in danger. According to her, he had been sending emails to the FBI to demand protection. When they checked his computer, they found an email sent to you. And this morning, I saw that you have read that particular email.'   
`And we went to meet him,' Mulder explained, `but he never came.' `You should have told me.'  
`His email never mentioned he was in grave danger, sir. We couldn't have known.' 

`Isn't it your job to find that, Agent Mulder?' 

`I had never even heard of him, sir. How could he have known me?' `That's for you to find out, agent Mulder. I think you might be putting your alien abduction case aside for a while to find out the truth about this one. And I advise you not to keep information from me anymore. That boy's life could have been saved.' 

`It was an anonymous email, sent through Yahoo. It could have been anyone. We naturally assumed it was a crank.'   
`Don't assume anything, as it can kill people, Agent Mulder. I will talk to you later, with a full report on this case. You will be working for the VCU to sort this case out. I don't want you in charge of the investigation for now.' 

Skinner left his agent completely dazed before Mulder could even utter another word. What had just happened? 

All of a sudden the agent had been given the responsibility for the death of a boy he hadn't even met. Was he really to blame? Was anyone ever? Mulder sat down for several minutes before Scully came in. She was as shocked as he was, but her rational mind instantly jumped to action, preventing her partner from thinking too far into the details. `We aren't to blame, Mulder. If that boy Simon needed help, he should have come to us, and not be so mysterious about it. We weren't to know it was this serious.' 

`I know,' Mulder admitted, playing with a pencil between his fingers. `Come on,' she urged him, grabbing her coat again and snatching his off her chair.   
`Where are we going?'  
`To Simon's house. Talk to his mother. See what this is about.' `It's not our investigation, Scully.'  
`Like hell it isn't. He contacted us, remember?' Mulder followed her, as she was the source of his strength right now. 

5 

The Fuller house was a mere two blocks from the Boulevard Centre where the agents had been waiting for the mysterious mailer. According to Terence Davis of the VCU, Simon had died around ten p.m., approximately the same time he was on the way to find the agents. He was pushed and shoved in an alley between his house and the Centre and died of multiple blows to the head. He was probably murdered with a heavy flashlight. 

`Get this, Mulder,' Scully said as she hung up the phone after speaking with the coroner's office. `Simon Fuller was terminally ill. He was dying.' `What?' Mulder asked shocked. 

`They found a medical file on him at Washington Hospital. He had what's called an astrocytoma: a very aggressive brain tumor. It was the kind of tumor that cannot be treated through surgery but needs to be treated with chemo, and medication. Unfortunately the individuals, who contract it, only have a small chance of survival. Chemo attacks the disease but doesn't always eradicate it.' 

`Was he dying?' I asked.  
`No, he most definitely died due to the attack. But get this: the brain tumor the coroner found wasn't half as large as the one described in his medical records at Washington Hospital, where he was examined. The strange thing is that none of the hospitals in the Washington area have treated him. He disappeared from Washington Hospital a few days after he was diagnosed, before they could start treatment. His mother never returned the hospital's calls and refused to answer their questions on his health.' 

`If she did not allow her son to be treated, why was that tumor smaller then?' I asked curiously. `Did he get treatment elsewhere?' `I don't know, Mulder. Perhaps she chose alternative routes to treat the disease. Anything is possible of course. She might have admitted him to a private hospital.'   
`Then there would still be records. Unless this kid had a miracle happening to him, his cure is a big mystery. Which ever way: he would not have died from that tumor, from the looks of it.' 

`We're here,' Mulder said, parking the car before a suburban house belonging to people who were probably not able to send their son to a very expensive, private clinic. In fact, it did not seem as if they had a nail to scratch their bottom with.   
So where had Simon Fuller been treated then? 

The interior designer doing the Fuller house had forgotten to add new furniture, Scully thought as they walked in. The residence was a small, two-bedroom house with a small, dark living room, old kitchen and ancient dining room. It urgently needed redecorating.   
But the woman, who invited them, wore brand-new jewellery, wore Paris and looked as if she just recently had a facelift. She smoked expensive cigarettes. 

`Welcome,' the blonde woman said, inviting them in. She did not seem unhappy. In fact, she acted strange for a woman who had just lost her only son, Mulder thought.   
Without asking the agents what they wanted, she moved into the kitchen and came back with three mugs of strong coffee. 

`I'm sorry about the mess,' Wilma Fuller apologized as they sat down on two worn-down couches. `I'm moving in a few weeks and haven't felt like cleaning up here, since it won't be long now.' 

`We are sorry to hear about your loss, Mrs. Fuller,' Scully began. `We are here to discuss what might have happened to him. Could you tell us a bit about Simon?'   
`My son has always been a bit of an eccentric, agent Scully,' the woman began, orienting her conversation towards Scully. She would hardly glance at Mulder. 

`Simon never played with his friends: he just sat at home and toyed with that damned computer of his for as long as I can remember. He was a bit of a whiz, they said. I told the police that he was acting paranoid: he thought some people were after him. I don't even know why. He just said that his life was in danger. He liked to act important, you know.'   
`There might have been truth to his words considering the circumstances,' Mulder spoke calmly, wondering what kind of mother could badmouth her son like that after his death. 

`You were the one he e-mailed, weren't you?' Mrs. Fuller said lightning another cigarette as she focused on Mulder for the first time. `I don't know how he got your name. Perhaps one of his computer friends told him. He knew a couple of geeks on the internet: they were his only friends. He was not an easy kid, you know.' 

`Mrs. Fuller,' Scully spoke gently, not persuaded to dislike this woman, despite Mrs. Fuller's obvious attempts to dishonour her son's name. `We know that your son had a brain tumor. Why didn't you have him treated at Washington Hospital?' 

She looked up, and hesitated. And suddenly the agents saw fear in her eyes. She did not like the way the questioning went. `I had him treated, only not in that hospital,' she explained quickly. `Believe it or not, but I don't know where he was treated. One day, right after we found out, he just disappeared. I received a call from a man telling me he had admitted my son to a private clinic where they would be able to give him the best treatment possible. A few days ago my son appeared again. He was dropped off by the man who had taken him, he said. He didn't know where he had been either: he slept when they took him and he slept when they dropped him off here.' 

`Who paid for this treatment, Mrs. Fuller?' Mulder asked curiously. `I don't know,' she shrugged. `Actually, I was even paid to have him treated there.'   
She smiled, waving around her. `I can finally move out of this dump and into a decent home, can you believe it? Simon should have been here to see it.' 

`Mrs. Fuller,' Scully wondered, `your son was gravely ill. He could not have survived that tumor without proper chemotherapy. He must have been treated in that clinic. Do you know if they did experiments on him?' `I don't know anything about that. He wouldn't talk about what happened there. He just said that they let him go and he was never to talk about what he had seen.'   
`Did you mention anything to you about it?' `Nothing. And I was paid to have my son cured. I had no reason to argue with them.' 

`Do you think your son's death might be in direct connection with what happened to him?' Mulder asked. `He might have talked to someone, or was planning to do so. If they monitored him, they might have known.' Her eyes stared at him coldly. `He would not have broken his word. And he knew they would take everything away again if he talked. If he did say something, he only has himself to blame for it.'   
She stood up. `Now, if you'll excuse me: I have to arrange my son's funeral.' 

`What a cast-iron bitch,' Scully groaned as the agents stepped outside. Mrs. Fuller had slammed the door in their faces. `She gets paid to have her son experimented on and doesn't believe his death is somehow linked to that? What a load of crap,' Mulder sighed. `I don't think Mrs. Fuller is going to mourn her son's death, do you?' `She is just happy that he has done one good deed in his life: pay for her new lifestyle which will be luxurious, no doubt. I would like to know what happened to that tumor inside the boy's head. I'd like to run some tests on it to see what they did with him.' 

`I'm going to go back to the office and talk to Davis,' Mulder proposed. `See what he says.'   
`I'll see you there then?'  
`Okay.' 

Scully dropped her partner off at the office and drove to the coroner's office. Mulder walked into the building and sought out Davis to discuss the details of the case with him.   
If only his head would stop spinning, he thought. If only he could get some rest. 

6 

Scully returned to the office with glittering eyes. She was actually excited about what she had seen, as it did not happen that much. `It was amazing, Mulder,' she told her partner in Davis' office. `Whatever they gave that boy, worked. A massive tumor has been reduced to nearly nothing. If they had continued treating him, he would have cured completely. That's why I don't understand why they didn't continue their tests: unless he was not supposed to heal of course. I've never seen anything like it. This goes beyond any medical science I have ever seen.' 

`Could you determine how they treated him?' AD Skinner asked who had joined us for this meeting.   
`I've taken blood samples and sent them to the lab. It will take a few days to find out what it was, but I can tell you that this treatment might break through any medical boundary we have seen so far. I'm talking about treating the most malignant tumors here.' 

`Don't go overboard just yet,' Skinner warned her. `There could be other explanations for the boy's cure.'  
`It seems obvious to me that the treatment he received was the cause of his improvement, sir,' Scully continued excited. `I'm hoping to find out more soon.' 

Mulder stood up, feeling extremely uncomfortable on his seat. Before, as he spoke with Davis about possible actions to take, he had felt the same way but the soreness in his body had vanished after a while. Now he just couldn't hold it any longer. He had to get up, move and get the aches out of his system. 

`Mulder, is there anything you wanted to say?' The agent turned to find Skinner, Davis and Scully stare at him in shock. `Mulder, what -`his partner said and that was about the last thing he heard. 

All of a sudden Mulder realized why they were staring at him. His legs had just collapsed from under him, dropping him onto the ground, onto his side. He could hardly move anymore.   
Within a fraction of a second Scully was by his side, forcing him carefully onto his back. He opened and closed his eyes, opened them again and found Davis and Scully leaning over him. Skinner was on the phone, ordering paramedics to Davis' office. 

Scully spoke to her partner but did not get through. Her face danced in front of his eyes, her hands seemed to shiver as she removed his tie, opened his collar and started taking his vitals.   
`He's burning up,' she groaned, angry at herself for not noticing this earlier. `Mulder, it's me. Can you hear me? Concentrate on me, Mulder. On my voice.' 

Mulder couldn't hear what he was saying. He felt like he was choking, as if his body would just stop breathing on the spot. And before long, it all slipped away from him. 

7 

Scully just could not understand what had just happened. Her partner was ill, much more than she had ever imagined. He seemed fine only a few hours ago and now she was performing CPR on him, getting his heart to jumpstart as the shallow breathing had turned into no breathing at all. And there was blood. She had seen that before, on herself. It came out of his nose. 

By the time the paramedics came, she was still taking his vitals, speaking constantly to her partner as if he could hear her. She knew he was in a far-off place and could not hear a single word she said, but she needed to do something. `He's breathing,' Davis told her. `He's going to be fine.' 

She shook her head, somehow knowing he was not going to be fine. They had both ignored the symptoms and now it might already be too late. Why in god's name had she not done something? 

As they strapped Mulder on the gurney, she turned to Skinner. `I'm going with him,' she said.  
`Of course. We'll come to the hospital. Do I need to contact anyone?' She shook her head grimly. `Hopefully that won't be necessary.' She followed the paramedics through the FBI hallways and ignored the glares of the agents who stared at her very pale, very unconscious partner. An oxygen mask over his nose and mouth was supposed to help him breathe. But what if something inside of him was stronger than that? 

8 

Mulder reluctantly became aware of the typical scent of hospitals. There were sounds all around him, but the steady sound of a beeping monitor was the loudest of all. He was in a hospital, in an ICU-unit where anyone could just walk in and ask him how he was doing. 

He hated it, and it horrified him. There was no denying it now. He opened his eyes and looked at his partner sitting worried by his bedside. She had the frown in her eyes she always had when he was hurt badly. She didn't want to be there, and he didn't want to be here either. 

He remembered now: he had dropped like a log in Davis' office, as if he couldn't have picked a better place to die. But he wasn't dead, was he? He felt fine. A bit faint, a bit bad - okay, lousy - but not too bad for a sick man. 

Scully moved and grasped his hand.   
Skinner was here too, standing behind the curtain as he spoke to a doctor. He was worried: Mulder could tell by his posture. 

His partner smiled worried. He wanted to say something, only to find that something was stuck in his throat. Great, he thought, a respirator. He hated those things. He wanted to pull it out and breathe on his own. `Mulder, don't fight it,' his partner soothed him, `it's helping you to breathe. You need it. Just try to relax.' 

How can one relax when something is stuck deeply down your throat, Mulder thought wearily. And why was it that he needed that damned thing? He could easily breathe on his own. 

A large, slim-built man, dressed in a green suit and white coat, holding a couple of papers, leaned over Mulder and smiled, 'Agent Mulder, can you understand me? Just nod.'  
Mulder nodded.   
`I'm Doctor Green. We've inserted a tube down your throat to help you breathe comfortably. It's unpleasant, I know, but a necessity for now. We will get it out as soon as you can. You are probably very tired. Why don't you get some rest now? We'll talk later.' 

As he wanted to walk away from him, Mulder grabbed his hand and stopped him. He turned around, and his eyes - which showed no emotion at all - just, stared at the agent. Mulder could not say anything but wanted to tell him with his eyes what he needed to hear: The truth. 

The doctor seemed to understand and patted the agent on the hand. `That will come later. Just rest now.' 

Mulder didn't want to obey but his body did automatically. Within a few moments he was sound asleep, forgetting where he was and why he was there. Doctor Green looked sympathetically at Scully who stood there with tears in her eyes. `I'm sorry,' he said. `I wish I could say something else.' 

Scully nodded and turned to Skinner who came to support her. Her boss put his hand on her shoulder. Scully felt like she would cry her eyes out and felt herself cling onto Skinner.   
`It will work out,' Skinner just said. `It has to.' 

9 

Mulder felt like all strength had left his body. He had nothing within him that could fight the illness he was suffering from. And yet, after two days in hospital, he still did not know what was wrong with him. But finally Doctor Green gave the order to move him to a semi-private room where he would remain while being treated for his illness. 

And finally, he knew what was going on. `You have what is called an astrocytoma,' Doctor Green explained. `That is a tumor that arises from brain cells.'  
`A brain tumor?' Mulder repeated numb. `Yes. Let me try to explain this to you as simple as possible.' 

Doctor Green looked for support towards Scully who had been informed of the truth two days ago, after first tests showed what the problem was. The doctor understood what a special bond the partners had and hoped that Scully would be able to soften the blow somewhat. But even she could not, as her fear was so clearly described in her eyes. 

`You have what we call a high-grade tumor. It's the type that grows rapidly and can easily spread through the brain. They're aggressive, I'm afraid, and require very intense therapy.' 

`An operation?' Mulder asked fearfully, knowing all the terror stories about people losing certain abilities after surgery. `The tumor is too large to operate and nestled in a very dangerous spot. The operation would surely kill you. At this moment you are also very weak. The tumor is growing in an alarming state we have noticed this morning, after running two-day tests.' 

`What are you suggesting then?'  
`Over the past years we have done a lot of research on treating high-grade tumors with new chemotherapy drugs. Since these drugs are very vicious and attack your body in the most violent of ways, we will also be using gene therapy to protect the bone marrow from the side effects. When these effects set in, we can give more intensive chemo as we progress in your treatment.' 

`What are my chances?' Mulder asked numbly. Doctor Green hesitated.  
`Tell me the truth, please.'  
`Your chances are slim.'  
`How slim?'  
`You have less than twenty percent of survival, Agent Mulder. We can't operate because of the tumor's whereabouts and that diminishes your chances gravely.' `And what if I don't get treated?' 

`You won't have another two months left. But if that is your wish, we can grant you a normal life with controlled medication and professional support.' `So what you're saying is that I'm dying,' Mulder spoke hoarsely. The doctor touched the small, modern glasses on his nose. His voice trembled. `I'm not giving up yet, Agent Mulder. I believe that the treatment will help you. But we have to move fast now. We have to start today.' 

Mulder stared at Scully who stared back. He was dying. He knew he had just a very small chance with the aggressive therapy that would no doubt cause him to suffer even more. What chance in hell did he have of living through this? This was what it came down to. 

`I want to perform further tests on the origin of the tumor, Agent Mulder,' the doctor continued. `Your partner has told me of the brain surgery performed on you months ago and your exposure to aggressive infections. Perhaps, if we can find the link -` 

`There's no use to do that,' Mulder spoke softly as he stared outside the window, feeling his body ache all over. `All the evidence is gone. You will never find a link.'   
`But still -`  
`I would like to be alone now, if you don't mind.' Doctor Green nodded, respecting the agent's wishes. `I will come back later to discuss treatment with you. Keep the faith, Agent Mulder.' 

Mulder almost felt like laughing as the doctor left. Keep the faith. What use was there to continue treatment when the chances were so slim? Scully touched his hand. `I'm so sorry,' she whispered, leaning forward as she buried her head on his chest. `Mulder, I wish I could do something. It's so unfair.' 

Her partner stared at her. And then he realized that this was exactly what he had wanted. When she was ill herself, when she was the one dying, he had prayed for someone to take that tumor out of her head and give it to him. He would have given his life for her. 

`Isn't it ironic?' he asked softly, touching her hair. Her body shook with tears. 

10 

Skinner took his agent to Mulder's house where she had to pack up some things. She had not left the hospital for the past two days, sleeping in an empty room as close to the ICU as she possibly could. She had refused to talk to anyone, to discuss this with someone and to take care of herself. If it weren't for Skinner, she wouldn't have slept or eaten. She felt like she was living on a source of adrenaline that was slowly running on empty. 

`There must be something we can do,' Skinner groaned as he drove. `I can't believe that it will end this way.'   
She didn't respond.   
`Can't we, Scully?'  
`What?'  
`Do something.'   
`There's nothing we can do,' she heard herself say, and she knew that she was right. For once, she hated the fact she was a medical doctor and knew too much of the situation. For once, she wished she had been an ignorant friend who could still hope for the best. 

Skinner stopped at Mulder's building and stepped out of the car with her. Upstairs, before his apartment, she looked at him. `It's over,' she whispered and started to cry.   
He took over the keys, opened the door and brought her inside. 

Scully stood in the center of the apartment and stared at all of Mulder's belongings: his fish tank, the NICAP-cap behind the door, the television set with his VCR and his extensive video collection, the pillows where she had rested against for so many times, and the computer that had served him so well over the years but was wearing out now. She knew the apartment almost as well as he did. She could not imagine having to clear this place out. 

She had not even cried when her sister died, and now she could not stop shedding tears. She should have known. She should have seen it coming. He had been acting so strange lately, so distant. Perhaps he had known too. Somewhere, inside of him, he had sensed that he was not well. 

`Come on, Scully. Gather his things and let's get out of here.' Skinner forced her to grasp reality. She moved, taking a weekend bag out of the bedroom where he hardly ever slept, and started filling it up with boxer shorts, T-shirts and his washing and shaving equipment. He would not even be able to take care of himself, she thought. 

I have to find that smoking bastard, she thought. He's the only one who can help him. He knows the truth behind that tumor. But she had not seen him for so long and she didn't even know if he was still alive. She knew next to nothing of him. 

All she could do now was concentrate on reality: standing by Mulder as he experienced the aggressive treatment that would wear him down. He would suffer badly, as she had done, and he would wish he were dead. She had to support him. 

She turned to Skinner. `Would you mind taking me back to the hospital? I need to be with him.' 

Skinner opened his mouth to object, only to find her fierce eyes glaring at him. Don't mess with me, they said. He just nodded and agreed to be her driver. 

11 

The chemo delivered worse consequences for Mulder than he had first expected. Nauseated and weakened severely, he was barely able to go through the ordeal awake. His body just drifted in and out of sleep constantly, forced into the world of darkness by the tumor that pushed against his brain. 

He had seen the scans and had held his breath. How could he ever survive this, when that thing, embedded in his brain, was fighting against the therapy that only made it worse? The chemo drugs seemed to attack his body so viciously, that it cost him hours to recuperate one single treatment. And when he had just recovered, the next treatment was already there. 

Every day he saw himself wither away. He was only a shadow of the man he used to be. He was pale, exhausted and had lost severe weight he could not stand to lose. And the drugs didn't work. They just made things worse. 

He wanted to die, more than anything. He had never thought that the day would come that he would welcome death with open arms, but here it was. The only thing stopping him from giving up now was his partner. If she had not been there, he would have found a way to end it himself. 

On the fifth day of the ordeal she sat by his hospital bed and read from Moby Dick. It had made him laugh when she showed him the choice of her book. It reminded him of better times, sitting on a rock in the middle of the night and discussing life's smaller details. 

In the middle of a sentence, he looked at her. `It's not working, Scully,' he whispered, his voice hoarse from exhaustion. She looked up shocked. `Mulder -`  
He had difficulty speaking. She watched as he struggled to find the correct words. And even though she did not want to admit it to herself, she knew that he had become Death's new victim.   
`Don't speak,' she whispered, but he shook his head and she knew he had to say this. 

`We both know that this is the end,' he whispered as he licked his lips, trying to get his throat to feel less dry. `I wish I could still believe in it, but I can't. We have to face facts, Scully.' 

Tears sprung in her eyes and she hated herself for them. She had vowed not to cry in front of him, to put up a brave face and be positive throughout the ordeal. Yet she found herself admiring her partner's acceptance right now, as he was the only one who could decide on what to do next. He had obviously chosen to face facts. 

`Am I right, Scully?' he whispered, and his feverish mind tried to stay alert. His eyes showed his exhaustion. His situation was rapidly deteriorating. `Is it getting worse instead of better?' 

She had seen the scans of that day and had had to force back tears during that horrible ordeal. The tumor was withstanding treatment, growing when it should have stopped. She had known then that nothing would stop it. She could not accept it, until Mulder confirmed his worst fears to her. 

`Yes,' she said. `It's getting worse.' He smiled, holding her hand. `That's all I needed to know.' 

`Mulder, don't give up now,' she begged of him, pleading as if her own life depended on it. `Don't let yourself slip away. It's not over yet. You have to fight.'   
He shook his head slightly. `All I need to do now is die in peace, Scully. And I am so glad that it wasn't you. I'm glad it is me.' 

`Don't say that.'   
`It's the truth. When I sat at your bedside, I prayed to God that he would give me your tumor so that you could survive.' He smiled wryly. `I guess I had my wish.' 

She stared at him, knowing now what went through his mind. Neither of them should die, she thought angrily. They both should be allowed to move on to better things. Was this the reward they received after all this time? Was it still worth praying to a God who would not listen? 

`I'm glad that you were my friend,' he whispered. `I just wish that we could have done so much more.'   
`We can. We will,' she vowed.   
He smiled. `Always the optimist, Scully. You're great, do you know that?' `Mulder,' she whispered, knowing that tonight might be her last chance to tell him the truth about her feelings. She did not want to keep her thoughts inside for once. She wanted to give him the support he needed to survive this. 

`Don't.' He patted her on her hand. `Don't say it. I know it already.' She looked into his eyes and realized he felt the same way. She could not go on without him, yet she knew she had to. He would not want her to feel sad for the rest of her life.   
She loved him.   
She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. `Just rest now,' she whispered, stroking his face. His eyes kept lingering on hers until they finally closed. 

She watched him slip into a peaceful sleep: the first in nearly a week. He had reconciled with his death, and so should she. Somehow. But she couldn't. 

She moved away from him, anger bottled up inside of her. She felt like her body was going to burst. This was so unfair! Outside, in the hallway, she took long, deep breaths. It could not end this way. It simply could not.  
But there was nothing she could do. Mulder's tumor originated from natural causes. All the tests confirmed that. And she could do nothing. 

She rushed downstairs, to the hospital's chapel where no one came this late in the night. She sunk on one of the benches and stared before her, to the carefully, beautifully carved statue of Jesus Christ. `Please,' she whispered out loud. `Please don't let him die.' 

If only He would answer her prayers.   
He just had to tell her what to do. 

12 

In the middle of the night, while Scully managed to get some rest in an adjoining room, Mulder lay exhausted in the semi-private room. The night nurse had just checked up on him, worried about his shallow breathing. 

Then a slight sound awakened him. He opened his eyes, staring at strange faces. Instantly he knew something was terribly wrong. No strangers would see him at this untimely hour. 

He would have fought them but they held him down. One man put a hand on his mouth. Another man switched on the light above him. He blinked. One man he knew: it was Doctor Green, his Oncologist. 

`Promise me you won't shout,' the man with the hand on his mouth asked. Mulder nodded and the hand was removed. The other men still held him down. 

Doctor Green looked strangely at him. `Agent Mulder, you're dying,' he whispered. `You don't have much time left. You're getting weaker by the hour. I can help you, but you have to accept the consequences. You have to come with me, and put your fate in my hands. You will vanish off the face of the Earth while we treat you. No one is to know where you are. You put your trust in my hands. The choice is yours.' 

`Where will you take me?' Mulder asked softly, sealing his fate with those words.   
`No questions. A simple yes or no. Do you want to live or die?' `Live,' the agent whispered. He had Scully on his mind: her fears, her anguish when she would find out that he had gone. But he had to fight. He wanted to live, to be with her and to share his future with her. To do that, he had to take chances now. Perhaps this was the only chance he would ever get. He couldn't turn his back on that. 

Within a few seconds, an injection was emptied in the agent's IV. Mulder felt his body give in to the drug instantly, slipping into unconsciousness immediately. He didn't even have time to reconsider his agreement. He didn't want to. He had her face embedded in his mind's eye and dreamed about her as he passed out.   
If anything would help him survive, he would do it. Now was not the time to overlook his cards and consider other prospects. 

Efficiently and thoroughly, as if they had done it several times before, the men in the room pulled the IV out of Mulder's arm, took him off the monitors and covered the agent's unconscious body with extra blankets. Then they covered his mouth and nose with an oxygen mask. 

They rolled him out of the room, using the bed he was resting on. They brought him to another, private room, where he was placed onto a gurney. The trip continued as the agent was again covered with blankets, strapped onto the gurney and provided with oxygen. 

They left the hospital unseen, using the same means of operation they had used so many times before. Soon they were on the road, bringing the agent to a private facility. 

Part two 

1 

Dana Scully was ready to kick some ass and the hospital staff knew it. As the night nurse returned for yet another round around the semi-private rooms off the ICU-floor, she noticed Mulder's disappearance. 

At first she thought something serious had happened and someone somehow had taken the agent back to the fully secured ICU-room. But she could not find him. Nobody knew where he was. 

This was not the first time this had happened, the attending nurse thought as her heart sunk in fear. She had seen this before. Patients had vanished without a trace, even though the hospital had done its utter best to conceal these facts.   
Now this had happened during her shift and she was not going to let them get away with it. 

She alarmed the hospital staff and sent someone to fetch the agent's partner who lay resting in a room further down the hall. Scully at first had difficulty comprehending what had happened, but as soon as she learned of Mulder's disappearance, she was up and about in no time. This had happened before, she realized, and then she had had to struggle to find her partner alive. She would not let this happen again! 

As she got on the phone with Skinner to notify him, the realization struck her. Her partner was gone. And what hope did she have of finding him again before - before it was too late? What if he died without saying goodbye, without telling her of what had happened to him - without giving her the slight, wry satisfaction of having said her own goodbyes? What kind of cruel person would do this to them?   
She should have stayed with him. She should have seen it coming. What had happened to her sixth sense in regards to Mulder? What had she let her guard down? 

Then the FBI came and scanned the whole area. The night nurses were questioned. Why hadn't they noticed Mulder was off the monitors? Why hadn't they seen anyone in the corridors? Why had no one seen anything out of the ordinary? 

`Agent Mulder is dying,' Scully spoke as gently as she could without jumping at the nurses' throats and strangling them for concealing the truth. Someone must have seen something, somewhere! `We don't have much time to find him. If you know anything, no matter how small, tell me. Please.' 

No one responded. But Scully could see they were hiding something. She could tell by their manners. And then the attending night nurse stepped forward and spoke.   
`This has happened before. And it had to do with Doctor Green.' It was enough for Scully to demand a full investigation into the hospital's practises. 

`Find Doctor Green,' Skinner ordered, `and get him here now.' 

2 

Mulder had trouble remembering. Everything just seemed too confusing to think about it. Whenever he opened his eyes, the room seemed to do a tango. His head felt heavy and painful, sore even. His body ached all over from lying on a cold table.   
Whenever he wanted to move something: an arm or hand, leg or toe, someone was by his side and stopped him. 

`It's okay,' voices spoke soothingly. `Just sleep. You deserve some rest.' He saw faces he did not know. Their bodies were clad in hospital outfits. They seemed doctors yet they were not. He was at the center of their attention and they performed all the care for him they could. He felt safe somehow. He had no time to think about any of it. 

Finally he was able to find himself in a private room, with a view on a garden that he did not know. He was leaning into the softest pillows he could ever remember, and the bed he was on, was as comfortable as any. An IV was stuck in his arm and he saw two bottles emptying slowly in his veins. He felt like he had just run a marathon. He was so exhausted. 

`You're awake,' a man said and entered the room with a glass filled with ice chips. Mulder's mouth was so dry he could have swallowed all the chips at once. And he would still feel thirsty. 

The man carefully slipped two ice chips in his mouth. He sucked on them, slowly allowing the ice to water his dry mouth, even for just a little while. Suddenly Mulder became vaguely aware of people watching him. He turned his face to find one woman and two men staring at him from behind a glass window. The man, who helped him, did not seem to notice. 

`Where am I?' the agent asked, coughing as every word caused his throat to ache. 

`That isn't important right now. The main thing is that we are helping you. You are improving, Agent, even if it does not show yet.' `Call me Mulder,' the agent groaned. `How can you help me?' 

`Do you remember that we took you from hospital? You're very ill. The tumor that has affected your brain was slowly killing you. You wouldn't have lived to see another week had we not interfered. We are treating you with a product that we have developed some time ago. We are a group of scientists, working on aggressive treatment of cancers. Our product that we are calling RS-One has proved its purpose over the past months. We have tested on human beings with nothing to lose, like you. You agreed voluntarily to subject yourself to this product, showing us that you are willing to take any chance you are being given.' 

`What is this RS-One?' Mulder asked fatigued. `It reverses the tumor, shrinking it until it vanishes from your system. It attacks the tumor from within, causing it to stop growing and to feed from its own cancerous cells in order to survive. By doing that, the tumor ultimately destroys itself. We are using it against its own weapons.' 

`Why haven't you come out with this? It could change the world.' The man smiled. `The time is not right doing so yet, Mulder. But some day our invention will change the world. Don't forget that the man with all the power controls the world. People will kill for our secret and we cannot afford that right now.' 

`How long -?'   
`You have been here for four days now. You are improving tremendously. Our tests show that the tumor is responding exactly as we would want it to. You will heal, Agent Mulder, if you keep on trusting us.' 

Mulder felt fear enter his heart. What had he done? He had delivered himself in the hands of total strangers, subjecting him to a treatment that he did not know anything of. If this were true, why wasn't there anything known of this product? Why was it such a big secret? Wasn't he just hoping and praying for an improvement, somehow knowing that it would never happen? 

He needed to talk to Scully about this, he thought wearily. He needed to find his partner and tell her what he had risked, where he was and why. She would be worried, trying to find him out there. But somehow he couldn't bring up the strength to even slip out of bed for a moment and find a phone. He couldn't do a single thing. 

`I understand that you might have difficulty grasping the facts,' the man continued. `You were told you would die and now here I am, telling you that you will survive. Yet it is the truth. I swear this to you. In less than two weeks, you will live again.' 

`And then what?' Mulder asked, feeling his mind slip into oblivion. He fought to stay awake.   
`Worry about that later,' the man smiled. `Relax and let us take care of you.' He stood up to leave the room.  
`What is your name?' Mulder asked tired. `Morgan,' the man said. `Doctor Alfred Morgan.' He paused. `I'm an old friend of your father's.'   
The man smiled reassuringly as he left the room, leaving Mulder stunned. 

3 

Skinner knew exactly where he could find Scully. She was back at the hospital, once again interrogating the staff on the whereabouts of the vanished Doctor Green, who had now been reportedly seen at the hospital during the night of Mulder's disappearance. Since he was off duty that night, his presence there caused suspicion. 

After the night nurse had confessed that there had been more people gone missing from hospital, and that the staff had covered it up to protect the hospital's reputation, further investigation had shown that a total of five, terminally ill people, had vanished. They were all under Doctor Green's care. They all had aggressive, inoperable tumors. They all had undergone intensive chemotherapy. They all had learned they were dying. And every single one of their relatives had been bought off with quite a bit of money to conceal the fact. They had chosen people with hardly any family, 

Simon Fuller was the sixth person, Scully knew now. He too had been under Doctor Greene's care. Mrs. Fuller had so much as admitted to it that Dr. Green had proposed an alternative treatment for her son, and that she had demanded a financial settlement to keep her mouth shut. She had given up her son for treatment, knowing that it wouldn't do much harm anymore. 

`You should be ashamed of yourself doing this to your son,' Scully had growled angrily. `You didn't even know where he was.' `It didn't kill him, did it?' Mrs. Fuller had replied. `They said the tumor was as good as gone. It was Simon who refused to continue with the treatment and asked to be taken home. Had he stayed, he would have been fine now. His death had nothing to do with his treatment. They were good to him.' `So good that he started fearing for his life.' `Who says it were them?' 

It was obvious Mrs. Fuller was not discussing the details on her son's treatment. In fact, she seemed eager to see the end of the FBI-agents. It did not seem to matter to her who had killed her son. As far as she was concerned, his death was unavoidable.   
`I'll mourn my own way,' she ended the conversation and slammed the door for a second time in Scully's face. 

The problem was, so Skinner thought as he found his agent arguing with the hospital's security over videotapes on the night her partner had vanished, that no one could tell them where Doctor Green was. He believed the rest of the staff who claimed they had nothing to do with the events. They had nothing to hide. The only man, who could help them find out the whole story, had gone. His apartment was empty and he had cleared out his hospital locker. Doctor Green, if that was his name, was gone. 

Scully's fierce eyes were filled with anger ever since the night her partner had disappeared. She would not allow fatigue to take over. She would not grief over his vanishing. She was too upset and too angry to do that. All she wanted now was to find him. So convinced she was that he would die before he got to see her one last time. 

No matter what Skinner said, it did not help her to calm down. Instead it just improved her eagerness to fight. He was the only one she could hold onto now and she was too upset to do so. He was worried for her, even more so should her partner not return? He had never seen her like this and prayed that he would never again. 

`I don't believe this,' she cried out as he approached her. `Why on earth do these people pursue their lies? Is it so difficult to tell the truth?' `I don't think they're lying,' Skinner told her cautiously. `Why would they?' `They want to cover up their screw-ups. Who says that Mulder even received proper treatment in this place?'   
`You know that's not true. They did all they could.' `Or only made it worse. I've been there too, remember? If they could screw me, they could easily screw Mulder as well.' 

Skinner placed his arm demonstratively on her shoulder. She looked up in anger. `Scully, I want you to calm down right now. This is not helping anyone, including Mulder. We need to pursue this in a different way. If needs be, we will drive off all the medical facilities in this country to find him. But don't let your anger get the better of you.' 

She wanted to scream at her boss too, tell him to fuck off and leave her alone with her grief. But she could not. Skinner had done nothing wrong. He had been there for her. She relaxed a bit, lowering her shoulders that had been up in self-defence for six days now. 

`You're right,' she grumbled. `But I'm so tired of this. I just want him back.' `We will find him. I promise you that. We'll turn the world upside down if needs be.'  
`I know.' She attempted to smile. `Thank you, sir.' He nodded and took her out of the hospital, eager to show her what he had planned in his search for his agent. 

4 

Mulder woke up because something stung him. A needle penetrated the skin of his upper arm. Whatever was in the injection entered his system instantly. The agent's first reaction was to struggle against the woman who was injecting him. He reached out instantly, grasping her arm as she removed the needle. She had another injection ready for him, this time one to empty into the IV. `Don't -!' the agent groaned. 

She gasped and backed off. He didn't have enough strength to hold onto her. The door to the semi-private room where he rested opened, and the older man he had seen before, entered. He could vaguely remember his name: Dr. Morgan. 

`Mulder, calm down,' the man said, tapping the back of his hand. `You're safe.' `What is she doing?'  
`She's helping you with your medication. Do you remember that we spoke about that, a few days ago? The treatment that I'm giving you with our RS-One?' `Yeah, I remember.'   
`She's just doing her job. Trust in her, Mulder.' `I don't trust anyone,' the agent groaned, this time allowing the woman to insert the needle into the IV and empty it. 

Dr. Morgan smiled happily as the nurse - or whatever she was - left the room. She came back with an extra IV-bag in less than a minute and hung it up next to the others. There were four bags up there now, Mulder discovered wearily, and he still felt like crap. 

`This isn't helping, is it?' he moaned as he tried to find a way to relax comfortably. He had been feeling uneasy for some time now, hot and cold, hot and cold. The bed felt like a prison. He could not get out, yet he wanted to escape the damned thing. 

`You have a high fever, as we had expected. It's normal: one of the unfortunate side effects of our product. You will be very sick for the next few days. It's going to get worse, I'm afraid. But we know that and we will help you as good as we can.' 

Mulder nodded, for now trusting into the man who appeared to be his doctor. Doctor Green was out of the picture: he had not seen him for a few days now. If only he could remember how long he had been here. It seemed like forever. He was tired of being a guinea pig. He wanted to talk to Scully and ask her opinion. Perhaps she would give him good advice. 

`You are improving, Mulder. That, I guarantee you.' Mulder stared into the doctor's eyes. `You knew my father, you said.' `Yes. I don't want to talk about that now. Perhaps later, when you're up and about again.'  
`Will you tell me honestly if I am going to die?' The doctor's eyes seemed surprised, as if he did not consider that an option. But he agreed. 

`I need a favor though,' Mulder whispered as the effects of the last IV-bag started entering his system. He felt his body relax and return to the world of safety where there was no high fever or pain. `What is the favor?'   
`I need to call someone. A good friend. She needs to know where I am.' `Don't worry about that now,' Morgan soothed. `That will come later. Just let RS-One do what it has to do. You will soon see her again then.' 

5 

Assistant-Director Skinner was not the type of man who would go outside the Bureau to find help in order to track down his agent. But he knew that right now, all resources were needed in order to help Mulder. 

And some resources came in the form of geeks, nerds or whatever you wanted to call them. In the form of three Lone Gunmen who wanted to believe that the government was one big conspiracy and that Mulder's vanishing somehow might be connected to that conspiracy. 

It was not the first time that the AD entered the Gunmen's little hideout but it shocked him every time. Here were three men who lived in the shadows and monitored just about anything that happened out there. Because of their work, they probably knew more about the government than the government did itself. 

When he spoke to Langley on the phone earlier that morning and expressed his concern about Scully's state of mind and the lack of progress in tracking down Dr. Green, the Gunman instantly asked him to come over. They had stuff to show them. 

`This better be good,' Scully frowned as Skinner took her. She liked the Gunmen a lot, but today she felt like anything she did was a waste of time. She was getting frustrated and desperate in their attempts to connect Dr. Green to anything out of the ordinary. The hospital's reluctance to cooperate did not make things easier of course. And even Simon Fuller's mother did not seem to care one bit about her son's death. What was wrong with this world? 

Byers folded his arms and asked their visitors to sit down. `Just tell me what you know,' Scully said short, wondering why the Gunmen wouldn't have come to her before if they had information. 

`We've been running our own little investigation since we found out that the kid, Simon Fuller, has been asking for Mulder's email address on the Internet. He talked to a few people from our circles and said he was in danger,' Byers started, not in the least upset by the agent's short reactions. `And you believe that someone intercepted that message and killed him?' `Exactly.' 

`We figured that there wouldn't be too many people in the Bureau interested in finding your partner,' Langley continued, `especially since he is - you know -` `Dying?'   
`Yeah well, we're not so sure that he is dying,' Byers continued. 

Frohike interfered. `Do you know anything about a group of scientists gathered together in what is called "The Phoenix Project"?' `That's an urban legend,' Skinner immediately said. `What project?' Scully asked. 

Skinner turned to her. `Supposedly a group of well-established scientists like doctors and researchers are secretively performing tests on human subjects in order to cure the most dangerous diseases on the face of his earth. According to the stories, were involved with tests on the Hanta-virus, the Ebola-virus and the Aids-virus.' 

`They're not stories anymore,' Byers explained. `The project exists and has attracted scientists all over the country. Rumor has it that they have found the cure to heal any disease. The problem is that officially, within government circles, the project has been cancelled because of their use of human subjects. A lot of patients died before they had results and the government covered it up. We believe however that someone reinvented the project and is still performing tests.' 

`How can you be so sure that this project really exists?' Skinner asked. `Like I said: it's an urban legend, within FBI-circles that is. I have never heard any confirmation about this.' 

`It's common knowledge within our circles that a man named Hans Geiger, a German scientists, came to the States to work on secret projects. He was a War-outcast, as many of the Germans were. During the day he worked on official projects and even won the Nobel Prize for his input in generating a possible cure for a dangerous flu-virus. However, rumors had it that he also was the founding member of the Phoenix Project. He was planning on winning yet another Nobel prize, only this time achieved with the aid of human test subjects,' Byers explained. 

`So what you are saying is that they are still out there and would need terminally ill human test subjects,' Scully spoke slowly. `People like Mulder, who would not stand a chance of survival. And like Simon Fuller, whose mother happily agreed to give him up. But that would be a good thing then, wouldn't it? He might even survive.' 

`Unfortunately, that is the big problem here,' Langley responded. `If Mulder is with them, we might never see him again, Scully.' Scully felt her body go cold. `Why?'   
`As far as we know, not a single human being has ever survived those tests. And even if they had, they never lived to see another day. The problem with this project is that the human tests would have to remain concealed. The medical board would never allow a product to reach the market when it has been tested illegitimately. In order to remove all evidence of that, they would have to destroy their subjects.' 

`I don't understand,' Skinner asked. `If Mulder were to survive those tests, he would be their greatest victory. They would want to show the world what they had done.'   
`They can't,' Scully responded softly. `They would lose their licenses. The product they have created would never end up on the market. They would lose all their work. Even if Mulder survived, like Simon Fuller obviously did, they would kill him.' 

`Do you think they killed that boy too then?' Skinner asked. `Why release him first only to have him killed shortly after?' `I don't know, sir,' Scully whispered softly. `All I know is that we have to find out where they are; where they would be able to perform those tests.' 

`We're on that,' Frohike spoke, patting Scully on the arm. `We'll find him, Scully.'  
She smiled. `I know you will.' 

6 

Mulder had lost all track of time. He had no idea how many hours had passed since he had been admitted to the private facility. He just knew that it had gone worse, just like the doctor had predicted. 

The drugs don't work, he thought every time he woke up. They just made things worse. And all he wanted to do was see her face again. She was all that kept him going. If it was not for her and the little bit of hope he had left, he would have given up. He knew he could do that: his body was sick enough to push it towards death.   
He held his fate in his own hands right now. 

But he had gone so far now. He knew he could not give up at this point in time. He had to keep the faith. 

He had seen many people now in his semi-private room. They were testing him, questioning him, looking at his charts. They asked questions to his doctors, wondered why he was still so ill and if the drugs were doing their job. 

Finally, during one warm morning, Mulder received a lot of answers to unasked questions.   
That morning, Mulder realized for the first time that his weary mind was able to put some things straight again. For the first time, the fever had gone down a bit, allowing him to overlook some of his options. 

Doctor Morgan came to see him early that morning, checked his charts and temperature and nodded content. Mulder knew this man was the barrier between the strangers in the room and his own health. Without a doubt, Morgan was the one who had invented RS-One and was testing it on his sick subjects. 

Mulder could also sense that Morgan was more than objectively involved. The man seemed to genuinely care for him. No doubt the bond between the doctor and Mulder's father had something to do with that? But Mulder could not remember ever seeing him before. 

Morgan seemed pleased to see the agent respond to his questions with a clear mind.   
`I'm happy to see you are feeling better this morning, Mulder,' he spoke. `You had me worried there for a while. I thought we were going to lose you. The fever was at a very dangerous point at some time, but you pulled through.' 

`How long now?' Mulder asked tired.  
`Eight days. You're responding well to our treatment. Things are looking good.' `Are you saying that I'm going to live?' He smiled. `I guarantee you that.' 

Mulder held his breath, not realizing yet what the doctor had just told him. He was going to live? To survive this aggressive tumor? Did he really have another chance? No, it was too soon to relish the option. But here was a man telling him he would be fine. A man who had not lied before. 

`It is true, Mulder,' the doctor smiled reassuringly, understanding Mulder's conflicts. `The tumor is almost gone. I had to upgrade your dosage to fight the fever. Your tumor was as stubborn as you can be, but we are winning. Another week or so and it will be gone.' 

`How -?'  
`I asked you to trust me, and you did. Now you are being rewarded for that.' `I can't believe it.'  
`Believe it. Don't you feel better yet? Your body is slowly recovering. You can think straight again. You can feel the differences. You know where this is going to end. By the way: I have something for you.' 

Mulder's eyes lit as Dr. Morgan placed a small bag with sunflower seeds on the table.   
`Even when you were at you worst, you kept on talking about them. You're not supposed to eat much yet, but I'm sure a little nibble won't harm.' 

`Thank you.' Mulder stared at the seeds inside the pack. He had been given them once before: when he was with the Navajo. They had taken care of him then the way this man was taking care of him now. Was this an omen that he should trust the doctor? 

`Careful with them,' Morgan warned. `Your throat must ache.' `Thank you for caring,' Mulder whispered hoarsely. Morgan nodded and handed him a glass of water. `Here, have this.' `When can I talk to Scully?'  
`Later,' Dr. Morgan said.   
`She'll be worried.'  
`She will see you soon enough. After you are well.' 

Dr. Morgan's nervous behavior enervated Mulder as well, especially when he noticed people behind the glass door to his room. The strangers who had been in his room several times now, were watching their every move. It reminded him of the fact he was a test subject. He was no better that the clones in the fish tanks, than the Samantha's he had seen years ago and than all those mutated humans who had crossed his path over the years. 

He felt sudden fear. 

`Are you going to kill me?' He asked it before he could stop himself. Dr. Morgan's eyes lit up.   
`What makes you say that?'  
`You treated Simon Fuller too, didn't you? And he was murdered.' `Simon was my patient, yes. But his death had nothing to do with this clinic.' 

Mulder gazed at the door. `They won't let me live. I'm a human test subject. A risk.'   
`Mulder, you are talking nonsense. I need for you to calm down right now. Your mind is playing tricks on you. We've come so far now. Don't let fear take over. Just rest now.' 

Mulder nodded, closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on sleeping. His body was tired but his mind weary. He wanted to stay alert from now on, to notice anything out of the ordinary that proved he was in a bad crowd. 

But Morgan came back with a syringe, filled with the sedative that sent him straight to dreamland. The doctor added it to the IV, ignoring Mulder's protests as he realized what the doctor was doing. 

`It's okay, Mulder,' Morgan said. `I swear you won't be in any danger.' 

And he was alone again, as fear engulfed him right before he slipped into darkness. 

7 

It was Langley who called Scully again late that evening to tell her they had a possible address.  
As she rushed over, she noticed the Gunmen's excitement. They were onto something. 

`It's a long shot,' Frohike explained, `but perhaps the one we need. We've been scanning the yearbooks of all medical departments of the East Coast universities. We scanned Green's badge photo that the hospital gave you and did a comparison. We came up with a possible match. Your Dr. Green might also be known as Tom Geller, graduate at Yale. He graduated cum laude and specialized in gene therapy. After his graduation, he worked for two years in a private clinic in Ohio, called Wild Oaks. Then he vanished off the face of the earth. That clinic might be worth a visit. If you check with Washington General, you might find that Dr. Green's references were fake, delivered by Wild Oaks.' 

Scully saw the comparison between the two photos and noticed the Gunmen had used aging software to make sure they were on the right track. Dr. Green and Tom Geller were the same man: there was hardly any doubt about that. 

`Thank you,' Scully spoke out of breath. `I need to call Skinner. We need to get there.'  
`I'll book two tickets on the red-eye out,' Skinner promised as they agreed to meet at the airport.  
Within two hours she waited impatiently for her boss at the entrance of Dulles airport. He arrived ten minutes after she did. She showed him the photos the Gunmen had made. 

`I know we have but little chance to find Mulder, but we need to grasp at every straw,' Scully spoke determinedly. `I won't have another peaceful day if we don't, sir. We both know by now that no one is really looking for him. They have already given him up. I can't do that.' 

`You don't believe that he's at Wild Oaks, do you?' `No, but they know who the real Tom Geller is. We only have a fake name of a doctor who is specialized in gen therapy. If he was somehow able to help Mulder, I will be grateful to him for the rest of my days. But if what the Gunmen have said is true, then Mulder will not survive a possible recovery. Either way: he might already be dead.' 

`You don't believe that, do you?' Skinner frowned. Scully shook her head. `No, sir. Don't ask me how to explain it, but I believe Mulder is still out there and still has a chance. I would sense it if he were dead.'  
`Let's get on that plane then and find out.' 

Scully knew that her boss was the only one apart from the Gunmen whom she trusted more than anyone in this world. He would not go with her if he didn't believe in Mulder's options. Either way: she couldn't just sit around and wait for a notification of her partner's death. She might never even find out. 

After boarding the plane for the short flight out, Scully did not think she could fall asleep. But she did as soon as they buckled up she fell asleep. Skinner watched her. 

8 

Around three in the morning, the plane touched down in Boston. A rental car had been reserved for them. Skinner had arranged that before they took off. `It's about half an hour drive from here, according to Frohike's directions,' Scully said while her boss drove. `It shouldn't be too difficult to find. Turn left here.' 

Both didn't feel the slightest bit fatigued as they drove through the dark night. The city streets were never empty. `The clinic is outside of the city borders. It's on a private domain,' Scully explained. `They wouldn't want to do their tests in a populated area, would they?'   
`Let's hope they know more about Geller,' Skinner spoke grim. `But we can't just walk in there in the middle of the night, Scully. We need to talk to the responsible people and not alarm them. I suggest we wait until early morning to go in there.' 

`And what if Mulder is there, sir?'  
`He won't be.'  
`You don't know that. Geller used to work here. They specialize in gen therapy. It would not be so difficult to have a separate wing here. In fact, it would be hidden easier than to plant down a separate facility somewhere. I will feel it if he's in there.'  
Skinner frowned. `I'm following your hunch, Agent Scully, but you are sounding to start more and more like Mulder here.' She smiled. `You couldn't have given me a better compliment, sir.' 

As they approached a compound off the I-93, about twenty miles out of town, Scully felt her body stiffen. `If he's not here, I'm going stir crazy,' she whispered.   
Skinner glanced aside. `I hope that you're right.' 

9 

It was shortly after eight a.m. when they decided to go in. They had parked at a lot about a mile further down the road, waiting patiently until the morning came.   
They talked about Mulder.   
`It's strange,' Scully had said. `I never thought he would die from an illness. I thought he would go in duty. So many times we had to save each other, you know. I thought that one day I would come too late and he would be shot to death. That's how I always pictured it happening. In the line of duty, of course. Like a true FBI-agent. And he would get an honourable burial.' 

Skinner couldn't help but smile. `Somehow I pictured the two of you growing old together. I've never seen agents so close as you have become. I can imagine Mulder working on some case at the age of sixty, frustrated that he still does not have his alien proof.' 

Now she smiled. `At the age of sixty he would have his own little private company researching alien activity. Or he would be the fourth Gunman.' `He might surprise us still.'  
Her face became distraught. `If he gets the chance to live.' `He will.'   
`How can you be so certain, sir, when we don't even known if that tumor is still in him.'   
`We are on the right track. I can feel it,' Skinner spoke confidently. `Let's continue to do so.' 

And so they drove to the compound's main entrance, guarded by secured gates that could only be opened from the inside of the building. Skinner's face was scanned the moment he pushed the alert button. He stared directly into the camera when he flashed his badge and introduced himself. 

Scully stood close by him.   
After a few moments the gates started to open. The two stepped back into the car and drove inside. 

The driveway was close to three yards and brought them to the main entrance of the private clinic. Again camera's monitored their every move. `Smile, Scully.'   
Skinner locked the car and followed his agent who had already reached the front door. Again a buzzing sound before they were allowed in. 

The reception area was cold: made of marble and steel. A young, beautiful but obviously ignorant receptionist greeted them. `I am Assistant Director Skinner with the FBI,' Skinner spoke as imposing as possible. `I would like to speak to whoever is in charge of this clinic.' 

`Do you have an appointment, sir?'  
`No. I am here on a matter of life and death. I have reason to believe that one of my agents is under the care of a former doctor working for this clinic. Since this agent is very ill, we cannot waste further time.' `Let me see what I can do, sir.' 

The receptionist pointed to a few low, leather seats in the far corner of the room where they would not be able to listen to whatever she said. Scully impatiently walked there and started rummaging through a clinic's pamphlet promoting plastic surgery.   
It was too quiet to be a hospital. 

`If there are guests here out of free will, I am sure they pay quite a bit to be here,' Skinner whispered to her, pointing at the gardens within the U-shaped compound consisting of three-story buildings. 

She could see what he meant: Everything seemed too posh to be part of a hospital.  
A few moments later a man clad in white doctor's coat came to them. `You are FBI-agents?' he asked.   
`I'm Assistant Director Walter Skinner and this is Special Agent Dana Scully. We are here to talk about Dr. Tom Geller. And you are?' `I'm Doctor Morgan.' 

10 

Skinner and Scully followed the doctor into a small meeting room close to the reception. A small window again gave access view to the gardens. Nearing nine in the morning by now, the clinic's patients were slowly coming outside. Not a single one of them was left unattended. All were taken care of by nurses and doctors. 

`What kind of clinic is this?' Scully asked as they seated. `One for those who can afford proper aid and the best medical care money can buy. Wild Oaks was established in the late eighties by a young doctor who knew what money could buy.'  
`Was his name Dr. Geiger?'  
`No, Dr. DeWitt. The name Geiger does not ring a bell. Can you tell me what you need to know?' 

`My partner, Agent Fox Mulder, disappeared eleven days ago out of a Washington hospital. He was very ill: he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.' `I am very saddened to hear that.'   
`Agent Mulder was not the first person to vanish from that hospital. More patients of the attending Oncologist, Dr. Green, disappeared. We believe that they are being subjected to testing with new drugs.' `And I understand that you are tracking your partner down,' Dr. Morgan spoke sympathetically. `But what does that have to do with Wild Oaks?' 

`We have reason to believe that Dr. Green is the same doctor as Dr. Geller, who used to work here. We are trying to track him down now, since we believe he is involved with Agent Mulder's disappearance.' `I doubt that he would have,' Dr. Morgan objected. `I have worked closely with Dr. Geller. In fact, he has been my pupil for over three years. I cannot believe that he would do something like this. You must be mistaken.' 

Scully took the comparison photos out of her bag and threw them on the table. `Is this proof enough?'   
Dr. Morgan touched his glasses and frowned. `This just proves that your Dr. Green looked like Dr. Geller. I'm not so sure that it's him.' 

Dr. Morgan rose from his chair. `I'm sorry but I'm afraid I cannot help you. I don't understand this connection. I hope that you don't believe that this clinic would be involved in human testing. That would be unethical and unorthodox to say the least.' 

`Then I'm sure you don't mind if we take a look around,' Skinner spoke calmly. `I'm afraid I cannot allow that. Some of our guests are noticeable and renowned people from our society. They pay for their privacy.' `I don't care about privacy,' Scully hissed. `Are you keeping my partner here?' 

Dr. Morgan directed himself to Scully and suddenly he reminded her very much of the mysterious, grey-haired man that had helped save her life when she was taken aboard the ship in the Arctic. He had died in a car bomb, Mulder had told her. But there might be more of him around. 

She narrowed her eyes, staring at the good doctor. `Do you know my partner?' she asked firmly.   
He stared back at her. `No.'   
`If you don't allow us in this clinic, we will ask for a warrant,' Skinner threatened.  
`You do that. And then come back with a valid reason.' 

Skinner and Scully had no other option than to leave. Dr. Morgan escorted them outside. As Scully opened the car door, Dr. Morgan approached her. `If he took your partner, he would have a valid reason to do so. Do you understand that?'  
Scully stared at him in shock. `You have Mulder.' Dr. Morgan just smiled and walked back into the compound. Security guards headed outside and waited for them to leave. 

`Come on, Scully,' Skinner said. `We can't do anything without a warrant now. We can be back here in less than an hour.' `He'll be gone by then,' she groaned.  
`I'll call for backup. We'll guard this place until then. Since this is the only way in or out, nothing moves that we won't know about.' 

As they drove out of the compound, Skinner was already on the phone calling for backup and a search warrant. The Boston department promised to send people straight away. The warrant would be ready in less than an hour. One of the agents would bring it. 

And the two of them waited.   
And waited. 

11 

`I'm Agent Holtz, FBI Boston. I have the warrant with me.' `Good,' Skinner said. `We don't have much time. We're going in.' Scully allowed Skinner to take the lead as they entered the compound once again, this time armed with a search warrant to go through the entire premises. It took over ten minutes before anyone at the reception would open the gates for them, but finally they could get in. 

Instantly the compound was entered by four different FBI-cars, filled with seven agents and one Assistant Director. 

The cute receptionist was gone. Instead, a man in his late forties sat at the desk and hardly looked up.   
`FBI,' Skinner spoke angrily. `We want to speak to Dr. Morgan now. And then you can get you hands on the desk and leave them there until we say so.' The man stared at them in surprise. Then he slowly picked up the phone and dialled a direct number. 

A few moments later Dr. Morgan reappeared. Skinner showed his badge and the warrant together.   
`As you can tell we came prepared this time. We have reason to believe that FBI-Agent Fox Mulder is on these premises. We have the right to search through every room on every floor of these buildings.' 

`I can't do a thing about this, can I?' Morgan shrugged and stepped aside. `Go ahead.'  
`Your badge, sir. We want full access.' `Go ahead. We have nothing to hide.' 

Morgan gave them his badge.   
`Give every agent a badge with full access,' Skinner ordered. `And you, Dr. Morgan, stay with us.'   
Morgan simply nodded and walked through the hallways with them. He was too calm for Scully's liking. They'd had almost an hour to get rid of all the evidence. My god, what if they had killed Mulder in a rush to remove him? What if she had his blood on her hands? 

As the agents scanned the corridors and walked through room after room after room, Scully knew they were too late. 

On the third floor they found a few empty rooms. But one of them drew her attention. As she walked into the semi-private room, she could actually feel Mulder's presence. It was as if he had been there and had left part of his essence to warn her. 

The bed was still a bit warm, as if it just recently had been inhabited. An IV-pole stood unused by the bed. She opened the closet and searched through the extra sheets, blankets and pillows. There was nothing here to recall Mulder's presence. 

And yet.   
She walked to the window and overlooked the beautiful gardens. Patients were obviously upset because of the FBI's presence. `What is it, Scully?' Skinner asked, watching her tense moves. She turned. `I don't know -`  
And then her eyes found what she had been looking for. It was small and meaningless, and any other person would have overlooked it. But not Scully. 

She knelt down and picked it up from the floor. And then she looked at Skinner and smiled broadly. `What is it?' he asked.   
`It's a sunflower seed.' 

Skinner turned towards Dr. Morgan.   
`Are you certain my agent has not been in this hospital?' Dr. Morgan just frowned and shut his mouth. 

12 

Mulder knew something was wrong the moment they walked into the room and started preparing him for transfer. He had been feeling better for the last two days: enough to start considering his options. 

During the previous night he had left his bed and shovelled shakingly towards the window. He had an old man's strength but could feel his body slowly recover. He was even getting hungry. 

He could oversee the gardens from his room. The compound was U-shaped. He could see no entrance or exit. He thought he saw huge fences all around the place. 

Early this morning, before he was even awake and able to think straight, Dr. Morgan entered his room, followed by a few of the others who had watched his progress. They started to prep him. 

`What's going on?' Mulder asked, before being able to utter another word. The other doctor - the one he did not like - emptied an IV directly into his veins. He slipped away before he could react. The drug was strong. 

`What are you doing?' he heard Morgan shout before he fell asleep. `You're risking the project!'  
`Do you want him to escape then?' the other one responded. 

Mulder was not aware of the fact his body was being transferred onto a gurney. The IV-bags were removed from the pole and placed onto his body, covered with warm blankets. From the third floor they went down to the basement where two ambulances were waiting in case of emergencies. He was pushed in of them. A male nurse kept him company as the silent doctor took a seat up front, next to the driver. 

They left the basement floor and did not take the main driveway that lead to the only supposed entrance to the compound. Instead, the vehicle kept driving over the back driveway, which lead past the beautiful grass to the back of the compound. 

And there it took the back exit, hidden between the oak trees and invisible for the human eye as you were looking at them from the buildings. Only a few people knew about this emergency exit. 

But something went wrong during the transfer. Dr. Geiger, who sat in the passenger seat of the ambulance, was alarmed during the patient's transfer to the other facility. The ambulance stopped long enough to allow him to go into the back. There he could see how Mulder was deteriorating rapidly. 

Within a few minutes time, the agent's breathing became shallow. His fever rose as they watched him. His body seemed to have a hard time dealing with the sedative given to him in Wild Oaks. 

Geiger cursed and struggled to stabilize the agent's condition. He should have listened to Dr. Morgan. 

Finally, as they approached the other compound, Mulder's condition improved. Geiger smiled, despite everything. It worried him that the FBI-agent was the one surviving all of the tests. In a way he would have loved to see the man go. He was a risk to them: one guinea pig too many. 

But he would have to deal with Morgan if he let the man die. Morgan was too important for the project. He had invented RS-One. He had done this miracle all by himself. When Geller delivered Mulder, all they had was a dying man. He would not have lived to see another week. The tumor inside his head had grown at an alarming rate. They had never seen anything like it. The cause of it was still a mystery. 

And Morgan had saved him. He was not there yet, but well on his way. The problem was that in the end, he could not live. Not if Geiger had anything to do with it. In all the years he had been testing on humans - at the young age of sixteen, when he was at the German camps - he had never let anyone live. Not even the woman whom he had fallen in love with. Not even the child that had pleaded for his life: the one who could have been his son. 

He had always honored the cause. He would do so until the day he died. 

Mulder stirred in his unconscious, fighting the straps that kept him onto the gurney. The agent was strong: stronger than anyone he had ever treated. He had a will to survive.   
Perhaps that alarmed Geiger the most.   
That, and the fact the agent's father had caused him trouble in the past too. 

13 

Mulder woke up in a new room, in a new compound that did not have such a nice view. His sense of fear became worse when it wasn't Dr. Morgan who greeted him this time, but the other one. The German one. `Where am I?'  
`Another clinic. We had to move you for safety reasons.' `Where is Dr. Morgan?'   
`He was detained. You need to rest. Your condition is worse than yesterday.' 

Mulder could feel the stiffness in his arms and legs. He was warmer than the day before, and felt worse. He couldn't shake off the sedative. `I want to see Dr. Morgan.'  
`I'm treating you now.'   
`Can I make a phone call?'  
`No.' 

Dr. Geiger left the room, leaving Mulder and a nurse alone. `Where am I?' he asked her.  
She did not respond and left as well. He heard a door lock. He was alone again, with his IV's filled with RS-One, and a room without a damned television. He couldn't even flip channels. He was alone with his thoughts and fears. 

Mulder slipped cautiously out of bed, dragging the IV-pole with him as he moved towards the window. He was feeling worse than yesterday but by far not as long as bad as ten days before. Whatever was entering his veins, kept him on his feet. He had no doubt on his mind that the tumor was disappearing. Somehow he knew that. 

But how long before he could call himself healthy again? How long did he have before Geiger came back with a lethal injection? Where was the barrier between testing and dying? 

Morgan's absence frightened him.   
It couldn't be long now. 

14 

`I'm sorry Mr. Skinner, but I cannot arrest a man because of a sunflower seed. This is ridiculous.'  
The Boston Public Defender was a stubborn but honest man who could not understand why the FBI had arrested a renowned doctor in his own clinic because of a sunflower seed. The Feds had combed the room from top to bottom and had found loads of fingerprints. It would take at least three days to go through them all in their attempt to find Mulder's. Until then, they had no way of keeping a doctor who treated some of Hollywood's superstars. 

`My partner was in that room,' Scully insisted. `He is crazy about sunflower seeds. Look at the other evidence, sir.' `What evidence? You have a photo of a college student who looks like a doctor who treated your partner in DC. You don't have a shred of evidence linking Wild Oaks to your partner's disappearance. You're on a wild goose chase, Ms. Scully.' 

`It's Agent Scully. And I know my job, sir. I know my partner. I know he was there. Dr. Morgan is an expert in gen therapy, as is his former pupil, Dr. Geller. The same Dr. Geller who disappeared after his work in this clinic, only to turn up years later as another doctor who happens to treat patients through gen therapy.' 

`It is still not enough. Solid evidence, Agent Scully. Give me that and I'll happily arrest your doctor for you.' 

Outside Scully cursed.   
`He's right, Scully,' Skinner soothed her. `We don't have anything.' She looked up at him. `Then Mulder's gone. They moved him and all traces lead to nowhere.'   
`I have someone on Morgan.'  
`He's cleverer than that. He won't lead us to Mulder.' 

Dr. Morgan left the interrogation room where he had been held. In the hallway he put on his jacket and walked over the AD and the female agent. He admired Scully for her insistence and strength. He wished he could tell her the truth, but he could not. It would jeopardize years of work. 

`I'm sorry,' he merely said.   
`Sorry?' She hissed. `You have Mulder and you're sorry?' `I have told you this before, Agent Scully. What if - and I'm not saying that it is - but, what if Mulder is better off with those who can heal him?' 

`For how long, doctor? I know how you work. First you test, and then you kill. If you care for my partner, set him free before it is too late. If you have an ounce of humanity in you, set him free.' 

`I don't have him, Agent Scully.'  
Desperate tears sprung in her eyes. What more could she do? How could she convince this man to release Mulder? How could she persuade him? `Please. I -` 

Dr. Morgan moved away from her and walked outside, into the fresh air. He stepped freely into a taxi that brought him back to the clinic. He knew the FBI was following him, but that did not matter. They could not enter the compound again. He waited until the gates closed behind him, and let the taxi drive him to the front of the building. He let the receptionist pay the driver and walked inside the clinic where almost no one was working. 

They all stared at him.   
`False alarm,' he smiled self-assured. `Let's get back to work.' A surge of relief went through the employees of the private clinic. Within ten minutes, everything was as it used to be. Except for one patient. 

Dr. Morgan sighed as he stood inside Mulder's former semi-private room and overlooked the gardens. He loved this place. Sometimes he pretended that he had founded it instead of Dr. Geiger. He disliked Geiger. The man was becoming senile. He was so focused on the results of RS-One that he had forgotten what it was all about in the first place. To save human lives: hurt some to save many others. It sounded noble, but lately it had all gone wrong. All of the patients had died and Morgan still did not understand why or how. When he worked with them, they had been healthy. And then they deteriorated and died. He could not ignore the fact Geiger might have progressed their death. 

Simon Fuller had been his first successful case. The boy had survived after two weeks of intense assistance. The tumor was down to nearly nothing when Geiger came to tell him the boy should be removed. RS-One had proven its results. 

Morgan had reacted shocked, denying what Geiger had told him. Kill the first RS-One survivor? No way. The boy was gentle and friendly: the perfect patient. And Geiger just wanted to kill him? That could not be. 

So Morgan had smuggled him out of the clinic and had taken him home. He would treat the boy out of hospital for the remainder of the time, until the tumor was completely gone. He had arranged that.  
And then the boy had died anyhow.   
That would not happen to Agent Mulder. 

Alfred Morgan needed to leave all of this behind soon and he realized that. But he was not ready to say goodbye just yet. He would help Mulder, and then he would reveal the truth to the outside world. Money was not an issue for Morgan. Human lives were. 

15 

Scully felt like her world had fallen apart. The motel room, about a mile from Wild Oaks, seemed as cold and dreary as never before. She felt like she would never warm up again. Skinner was worried about her: he had never seen her like this. She had never given up on Mulder before, and now it seemed as if all life had drained out of her. 

`We will find him,' he told her for the tenth time and she merely smiled. `We will find him.' 

But not even Skinner believed they stood a chance anymore. 

16 

Geiger waited for him as he approached the small building closer to Boston. The ambulance had left for Wild Oaks. There were ten people inside the building that was completely organized as a very private, very secluded clinic. In this building, Geiger had performed his first American tests on humans. The building dated from the early nineteen-fifties and had been upgraded ever since. 

`He has to die.'   
Morgan's eyes focused on Geiger. `Why?' `They're looking for him. He's a menace to us all. Geller never should have brought him here. He knew that man was a major risk to us.' `Geller has delivered us perfect subjects for our tests. You can't blame him. Mulder is no different than anyone else.' `Oh yeah? Is that why the Feds were after us? We should have known that Geller would be recognized sooner or later. He was always too high profiled.' `He's in Canada now, like you wanted. Leave Mulder alive: he's done you no harm.' 

`What are you going to do then?' Geiger sneered, `throw him out on the streets like some lost puppy and pretend that this didn't happen? Your emotions are getting the better of you, my friend. You let your subjective judgement control your ideas.'  
`Why not? Mulder did not harm a fly. He trusted his.' `He'll come back for us. I know his reputation: when he's onto something he won't stop until he finds the truth. The fact that we healed him will not stop him from questioning us. You should know that. His father was the exact same man. He caused us nothing but trouble too.' `His father always did what our government asked him to do. He was a good man who worked for the better of our society.' 

Geiger smiled wryly. `I know you Americans believe in friendship but I don't. I believe only in money.'   
`You can't say that this does not affect you. You should be proud of what we have done.'  
`I'm only in it for the money, Alfred. I always was. I never lied to you.' `What is money going to do for you at your age?' Morgan frowned. `You're old, my friend. You won't live to enjoy it. Besides, it will take another five years before we see the first money appear.'  
`I don't think so,' Geiger blurted out. 

Morgan stared at him surprised. `What are you talking about?' Geiger turned his back towards his partner but Morgan stopped him. `What are you talking about?'   
The German doctor only smiled.   
`My god,' whispered Morgan, `you're selling the product, aren't you?' Geiger shrugged.  
`To whom?'  
`The highest bidder: those who want this more than anything in the world. It's the perfect weapon, Alfred. The one who holds the key to it all, will win all wars.' 

`I can't believe this.' Alfred Morgan stared at the German scientist he had never trusted in his life. But they had worked together for over twenty years and had learned to deal with each other, and all the other involved. The Phoenix Project would not exist if it weren't for Geiger. And now Geiger was throwing it all away for his own sake? 

`The agent must die,' Geiger repeated. `Never.' Morgan grasped the one object in Geiger's little office that held some value - and some weight. Raising it above his head, he let it come down quickly on the side of Geiger's head, knocking him out in one instant. 

The German doctor fell forward, onto the side of his mahogany desk, striking it hard as he went down. And he stayed down. Morgan stared at the body of his former companion. His eyes saw nothing: he stared into a world Morgan could not reach into. 

Noise came from outside the room. Someone knocked hard on the door. Morgan opened it and looked at Geiger's closest companion - or friend, whatever you could call it - who entered the room. 

He was a tall, dark-haired scientist with a natural dislike for Morgan. He had always called the older doctor too affectionate and soft. Perhaps he was right, Morgan thought, but he would allow Mulder to die. He was not a killer. 

`What happened?' Groves asked as he knelt by Geiger's dead body. `He fell and struck his head. There's nothing we can do.' `I heard you argue.'  
`We talked.'  
More people entered the room. Groves' eyes sought out Morgan's, only to find the doctor had left. 

Morgan rushed through the small facility, trying to gather his thoughts. The only way to save Mulder now, was to get him out of there. No doubt Geiger had informed his confident about his plans. Mulder's life was at risk now. And so was Morgan's long work. 

Morgan knew he only had so little time. It was now or never. As he approached the agent's room, he dismissed the nurse who was just about to give the man another sedative. Geiger's orders, no doubt. It did not matter to the German doctor anymore that the agent's body reacted badly to extra drugs given to him. They had nearly lost Mulder in the ambulance over. Geiger had stopped caring. 

Mulder heard the doctor enter and turned to face him. `I want to talk to Scully. Now.'   
Morgan was genuinely surprised by the agent's insistence and obvious health. He was in better shape than what he could have hoped for. `Better yet,' Morgan spoke softly, `I'll take you to her. We're going.' 

For a moment the FBI-agent scanned Morgan's face, only to nod then and move the blankets aside. A few seconds later he stood unsteady on his feet: swaying and leaning into Morgan. But he was up.  
Morgan pulled out the IV. 

`Wait here.' Morgan left the room and walked into the doctor's small locker room. All lockers were open. He found a set of clothes that should fit the agent. As he returned to the room, he found Groves. He stood opposite the agent, with a gun in his hand. 

`Planning on leaving, doctor?' the man asked. Morgan sighed, threw the clothes on the floor and raised his arms in the air. The single moment that Mulder needed to respond was enough. That split second, as Groves paid attention to Morgan, the agent's hand moved and struck Groves hard on the side of the head. The scientist's finger was not on the trigger. He dropped the gun as he backed away dazed, reaching for his face. 

Morgan grabbed the can with ice cool water and finished the job by smashing it on the man's head.   
The effort had cost Mulder too much energy. `Get these clothes on,' Morgan ordered as he sought out something to tie up Groves with. Finally he used bandages stuck in a closet down the hall. Then he entered the small facility room next door where the product was being kept. He could easily reproduce it, but he needed it to treat Mulder. Without it, the tumor could still win. He needed to find someone within the Phoenix organisation he could trust. Only then would he reveal the whole truth. 

When he was ready, Mulder was dressed in clothes that were too big for him but would fit him when he gained some weight again. 

`Are you alright?' Morgan asked concerned, realizing the agent was by far not fit enough to go through all of this.  
`I have to be,' Mulder groaned as he held onto the doctor. `I'll be fine.' `You have to make it to the car. It's parked up front. Can you do that?' Mulder nodded and waved at the gun on the floor. `Get that to go.' 

Morgan helped the agent down the corridor to the elevator that brought them downstairs. As they moved out and entered the reception area, the guard walked over to them. The receptionist did not know what was going on: she believed she was dealing with very private, high-paying patients who wanted to kick the habits. She had never seen a patient before though and tried to remember if this man could be a celebrity. 

The guard knew better.  
`Dr. Morgan,' he began, `what is going on?' `I have to go,' Morgan spoke calmly. `Get out of my way, Frank.' `I can't do that, doctor.'  
`I am in charge now. Dr. Geiger is dead.' `We want to talk to you about that.' 

Morgan's eyes found Mulder's. The agent was leaning heavily into him, panting as they stood in the corridor. The agent then stared at the gun that rested beneath Morgan's jacket. 

Morgan, who had never touched a gun before in his life, knew exactly what to do. He let go of Mulder who stood by himself in the reception area and pulled the gun out in a second.   
The guard had not expected such a move from the calm, self-assured doctor who always greeted him in the morning. 

`I don't want to use this, Frank, but I will. Let us pass.' The guard stood aside, knowing he wanted to help the doctor but could not do so publicly. So he raised his hands and let the doctor and his patient pass. 

In an instant they were at the car. Morgan helped Mulder get in, buckled his patient, rushed to his side of the car and drove off just as Groves rushed outside.   
Morgan smiled relieved. `We made it!'   
He looked aside to find Mulder unconscious, slumped back in the passenger seat. 

`Just rest now,' Morgan spoke with care as he stopped to buckle up his patient. `You deserved it.' 

Not even a minute later, as they left the I-93 towards New Hampshire. Morgan had no plan or ideas. He just needed to know they had to get away from the city as soon as possible: that's where they would be looking for him first. He could not go home or to any of his remaining relatives. They could all be in danger. The only possibility was the FBI. But first he wanted to heal the FBI-agent. He could not wait too long. 

As they passed the exit for Lawrence, Morgan took a quick decision to spend the night there in the first motel he could find. He took the exit that said Haverhill/Lawrence, took Route 495 North and headed towards downtown Lawrence. In his rear-view mirror he spotted two cars that had been following him on the Interstate 93 and now kept their distance. 

He slowed down first to see what they would do, took the first road he could find and saw them following again. He felt fear as he pushed the gas pedal and started racing through the street that lead to downtown Lawrence. With a bit of luck he could lose them there and head back for the Interstate. He needed to get to New Hampshire then, and try to find something there. 

The second he decided to do so, the car tyre blew out. Morgan was not an experienced driver. He was used to doing the short route from his Boston home to the clinic and back. He preferred that others drove. He panicked as he lost control over his vehicle and it headed towards another car. He heard car horns honk and then his own Ford crashed into the large ditch that separated the street from the houses. 

The last thing Alfred Morgan realized, where that the cars behind him had stopped.   
So had several other people. 

Part three 

1 

`Mister, are you okay?' 

Mulder heard voices through the daze that had kept him for so long now. He tried to reach for Scully's through the fog, only to realize that her voice was not amongst those who talked to him. 

He heard several people and then the car door opened. A man reached in and touched his throat.   
`He's breathing,' the man said. `He seems sick.' `Can we get him out of the car?' another voice asked. `Wait for the paramedics. They're here.' 

Another voice. `Sir, can you hear me?'  
Mulder opened his eyes and looked at a man dressed in white clothes and a large, orange jacket. He remembered seeing people in white clad, in a hospital room. One of them had tried to kill him. But this man seemed friendly. 

He nodded slowly; confused at the situation he was in. `Are you hurt? Do you feel pain anywhere?' He did not know. The aftermath of the continuous treatment and sedation still held onto his body. He shook his head. `We're going to pull you out of the car. We're going to put your neck in a collar to be sure, okay?'   
He nodded again, only slightly. 

Then he was lifted out of the car, onto a gurney. He did not want to be strapped again. It made him vulnerable. Weak.   
He looked around to see the doctor that had helped him. Where was Morgan? He did not even know where he was. 

`Where are we?' he asked, shivering with cold. The paramedic did not seem to find that a strange question. `Lawrence.' `Where?'  
`Massachusetts. We're taking you to Lawrence General.' `No hospital.'   
The paramedic ignored Mulder's remark and turned towards his colleague. `Are we ready to move yet?'  
`Just a minute. The other man is waking up.' 

Mulder knew the other man could only be Dr. Morgan and strained himself to catch a glimpse of the doctor. But then two men that looked vaguely familiar to him crossed his view. He had seen them before. 

One of them knelt by his side. The other one turned to the paramedic and said, `I'm Dr. Geller, this man's doctor. I happened to see the accident. I would like to transfer this man to our private clinic at once where he was cared for.' 

`I'm sorry but I cannot do that doctor,' the paramedic argued. `We are obligated to bring all patients to Lawrence General.' `This man is very ill. Arguments could kill him.' `If that is so, I suggest that you follow us to General and inform his doctors about his condition.' 

With that, the paramedic closed the argument to Mulder's great relief. But he still feared going back to hospitals. He needed to get away and take Morgan with him. Somehow he knew his life depended on Morgan, who was now outside the car and swaying on his feet. His head bled but he seemed fine. 

Mulder decided to take matters into his own hands and started to get up from the gurney onto which they were going to strap him. `Don't move, sir,' the paramedic ordered. `I need to make a phone call. I'm an FBI-agent,' Mulder whispered tired. `Who do you want to call?'  
`My partner. She's looking for me.'   
The paramedic had to lean over him to understand what he was saying. Mulder's voice sounded strained and soft. 

`What's her number?'   
Mulder had to think about that. He knew her number by heart, didn't he? Her mobile phone number. It was saved in his cell phone but he didn't have that here.   
`I don't know,' he finally whispered. `Her name is Dana Scully.' `I'll call her, I promise.' 

Mulder closed his eyes. 

Alfred Morgan pushed aside any help, more concerned about his patient than anything else. As he moved forward, he ignored his colleagues and concentrated on Mulder. The agent was hardly responsive. The paramedic had put an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and was preparing him for transfer, worried about his patient's condition that seemed to deteriorate as they were watching. 

`I'm his doctor,' Morgan spoke and this time the paramedic did listen. There was something about Morgan that persuaded him to listen to the man. `I am treating Agent Mulder for a tumor. He's been healing but his condition needs to be carefully monitored. I ask your permission to drive into the same ambulance to the hospital. I need to give this man his medication urgently.' 

`What medication are we talking about?' `It's a new drug. Please, this man could die as we are standing around talking.' `You can come.'  
As they moved Mulder into the ambulance, Morgan slipped in quickly and sat next to the paramedic. The others were not allowed inside the vehicle. He had no doubt he would see them again at the hospital, waiting to make their move as soon as Mulder was left alone for only a second. 

Morgan opened the bag he had pulled out of the car as the paramedics had helped him, ignored his throbbing headache and dug out the bottle of RS-One. `What are you giving him?' the paramedic asked. `Something that can cure him: perhaps the only thing that can help him now.' 

The paramedic hesitated.   
`I am doctor Alfred Morgan. I run a private clinic near Boston. You can check me out. I have a license to practise and work daily with cancer patients. You have to trust me on this one. I don't have time to argue.' `Go ahead.' The paramedic knew he was taking a major risk allowing the doctor treat this patient, but if what he said were true, he would only be helping Mulder. It didn't take a paramedic to see that the agent's condition was rapidly deteriorating as they discussed their options. 

The moment Morgan injected his patient, the man's condition improved within minutes. As they reached the hospital, Mulder's breathing was regular again and even the fever seemed to have gone down. 

`I don't know what you gave him, but it worked,' the paramedic smiled relieved. Morgan merely smiled and closed his eyes fatigued. He was tired of running, and yet it had only begun. He would not have a life anymore. All was concentrated on this man's health and his progress in healing. 

Mulder was transferred into the ER and lifted onto a bed. Morgan explained that he was Mulder's attending physician and had been on his way to bring him to another medical facility where he could finish proper treatment for his illness. They had decided to say in Lawrence overnight when their car tyre blew out. 

The paramedic explained how Morgan had administered a drug in the ambulance that improved the patient's condition. The treating doctors glared at Morgan who just explained he was working on a new drug that showed positive results. He was not about to explain his life's work here. 

Morgan watched as the agent's body was being examined for injuries resulting from the crash.   
`I'd like to check you out, sir,' another doctor said as she came to fetch Morgan. Your forehead needs a few stitches. Morgan hardly noticed he had been bleeding until he saw his own hands and felt the dried blood on his eyebrow and cheek. He nodded: not eager to leave his patient alone. 

Mulder blinked, opened his eyes and stared at the strangers. Then he turned his head and saw Morgan who nodded supportively at him. Mulder smiled, placing his life back into Morgan's hands with that simple gesture. But Morgan saw pain in the agent's eyes. He could not run for much longer in this condition. He needed to get him back to his friends where he would be save. 

As the wound was being treated in the other small ER-room where he could keep an eye on Mulder through the glass window, Morgan's mind ran a thousand miles per hour. He needed to find out where Mulder's friends were and bring him back to them. Or get them here. But how could he find them? 

As Mulder lay on the bed and obviously talked to the doctors, Morgan felt his heart grow colder. The others would know that Mulder had talked. They would sneak into his room at night and kill him. A medical accident was so easy to fake. 

Morgan's eyes dwelled through the small area of the hallway he could see. He spotted them at once, and as they stared at him and nodded in silence, he knew that Mulder would not live to see another day. He would not be taken back to the facility.   
Perhaps Morgan would neither. His life's work would be destroyed. And the drug that cured all would end up in the wrong hands. 

Morgan bit his lip. This would not happen. He'd rather die running than to remain here in the lion's den. 

2 

All they could do now was to go through all the hospitals in the East, Scully knew. Check every private clinic and hope that it was connected to a doctor. The Boston department proved to be a big help. In their offices, checkups were done on all the hospitals in the area. Names were verified, dates and places compared. 

Late that evening they finally had something. `Our Dr. Geiger has bought a small facility about five miles out of town,' Skinner came back hopeful. `The building is supposedly abandoned but something tells me he might have had it redecorated.' `Do you have enough for a warrant this time?' `The name Geiger assures a warrant. Let's go.' 

As they approached the facility, they arrived at a busy building in the middle of chaos and mayhem. The receptionist let them in blurry-eyed. The guard named Frank seemed upset. 

And they found a very dead Dr. Geiger lying in a pool of his own blood, in his own office. 

At that exact moment, Scully's cell phone rang. `Agent Dana Scully? I am a paramedic at Lawrence General Hospital. I brought in a man who looked for you. I had to find your cell phone number and it took me a while to contact you through the FBI.' `What was his name?' Scully asked tense. `Mulder, I believe. He had no identification on him. He was very sick.' 

`We're on our way,' Scully spoke breathlessly. 

3 

The ER had returned to its own calm self. Resting comfortably, Mulder was waiting for scans to be taken from his head. The attending doctors had ordered that.   
He knew the others were waiting for him behind the curtains that gave him privacy. He wondered where Morgan was, and if he had abandoned him. 

Mulder's mind worked clear enough to realize he was not out of the woods yet. He still needed treatment; still depended on the drug that saved his life. But he was getting there. Every time the drug was administered, he could feel his body recuperate quicker. But he was so tired, so exhausted. This ordeal had taken the best from him, leaving him with a shell of a body that could hardly drag itself forward.  
The short resting breaks in between did nothing for him. 

He did not know whether Scully somehow knew he was here. He hoped to see her every time someone walked past his bed but she did not come. He could remember telling a paramedic her name, and he had told the doctors too. But he had not come too far. 

As the curtains were removed once again, Morgan stepped in the cubicle, glaring at the men in the hallway.   
`Mulder,' he whispered cautiously.  
`Dr. Morgan.'   
`We don't have much time. They're here to kill us. We need to find help.' `The police.'  
`Your friends at the FBI. Your friend's number. Do you have it?' `I can't -` Mulder hesitated, frowning as he tried to remember. `I don't know.' `Think, Mulder. You've got to help me on this. Try to remember her number.' 

Morgan watched as his patient closed his eyes and tried to remember his partner's mobile phone number. He was exhausted by the effort. Morgan frowned, worried at Mulder's continuous fatigue. Simon Fuller had not been so tired. The sedatives that Geiger insisted on still had to wear out. Morgan realized Geiger had given him a lot more than he first said. 

The curtains slipped open and Morgan's former colleagues stepped into the cubicle, this time accompanied by Groves. Morgan felt his courage sink. How could he oppose these three men? 

`Dr. Morgan,' Groves smiled. `It's time to say goodbye.' `You can't just kill us,' Morgan spoke haughtily. `I'm the only one who knows RS-One.'  
`Actually, that's not so important anymore. Dr. Geiger left us enough instructions to create the product. It's a shame, isn't it, that we should destroy the first patient who has recovered so quickly from such a malignant tumor. Of course you understand that we have no other choice.' 

Mulder reached for the alarm body as his hand was held in a vice by one of the men. He groaned. A nurse walked in.  
`What is going on here? This patient needs to be transferred for scans. Please leave now, unless you are related to him.' `I would like to go with him,' Dr. Morgan spoke hastily. `I have your hospital's permission to accompany Agent Mulder at any time.' `You are Dr. Morgan?'  
`That is correct.'  
`You can come. The others can leave and wait in the waiting area.' 

The persistent nurse and a male colleague moved Mulder's bed down the hallway to another hospital area. Grover and the others watched in frustration. `Guard the exits,' grumbled Grover. `Morgan's struggling like a scared cat. He'll do anything to get out of here.' 

Mulder's bed was pushed into a small waiting room. `Just relax,' the nurse spoke friendly. `We'll be back soon.'   
Morgan carefully monitored his patient's fatigue. The agent rested with closed eyes, obviously unable to stay awake long enough to fight for his life. He did not seem to care what was happening. 

`Mulder, open your eyes,' Morgan insisted. `We don't have much time.' The agent blinked and stared at the doctor in blind faith. Morgan felt his heart sink. The agent obviously was in no shape to escape. What had they done to him? In order to save his life, they had also pushed his body to the brink of sheer exhaustion.   
Morgan knew the symptoms: his own son had died from it in Morgan's attempt to save him. He had overdosed him on RS-One, bringing his body to the brink of death. Only, Jack had not survived. His heart ultimately had given up. 

No, this would not happen to Mulder.   
`Mulder, you have to focus on what I am saying. Can you do that?' The agent nodded quietly.   
`We need to get out of here before they find us again. They'll do anything to stop us. Listen to my voice and concentrate. I didn't cure you to give up on you now.' 

Mulder groaned as he slowly sat up, aided by Morgan. He listened to the doctor's words, realizing his life was in grave danger. All he could think of now, was Scully.   
He remembered her. Her phone number.   
`That's it,' Morgan encouraged him, `put your feet on the ground.' 

Clad in a hospital gown, Mulder shivered in cold. Morgan pulled a blanket off the bed and draped it around the agent. `I'll get you clothes,' he promised. `But now we have to leave.' 

The door opened and the nurse came back. The woman said, `Hey, what are you doing? You can't just walk out of here.' `I'm sorry,' Morgan answered, `we don't have time to argue or they'll kill him.' `Who?'  
`The men in the waiting room. You need to warn the FBI. They're killers.' `Then wait here until someone gets here.' `I can't. It's too risky. I need to get this man back to Washington.' `Not in his condition. He would not make it.' `I'll fly him back.' Morgan put Mulder's arm around his neck and forced him up. Mulder remained unfit on his feet but able to walk. 

Despite the nurse's protests, Morgan helped his patient down the hallway, towards the hospital rooms, into a small and private room where a man was sleeping. Morgan dragged the man's clothes out of the closet and began dressing Mulder.  
The agent was able to help as he stretched his back and started recalling where he was. The fog in his head was finally fading. 

The nurse had gone, obviously to fetch help. Morgan glared outside, saw her talk to a few people in the back and chose the other direction. As they reached the elevators, Mulder groaned and rested against wall. The nurse pointed at them as they slipped inside. Morgan pushed the basement button. 

Mulder rubbed his eyes, blinking his eyelids. `I'm so tired,' he whispered. `I'm tired of running.'   
`You have to hold on for a few more hours. I will get you back to Washington, I promise.'   
`Why?' the agent frowned. `Why are you doing this? You could just let them kill me.'  
`They're abusing my findings,' Morgan groaned. `This isn't just about you and me. I have to stop them.' 

Mulder looked up. `Who are you?'  
`I'm part of an organisation who worked on cures for incurable diseases. The government employed us. Your father was a friend of mine.' `Were you involved with the alien conspiracy? Did you work on the vaccine?' Morgan nodded slowly. `I knew about it.' `What I have - this tumor - is it part of the alien virus?' `I don't know. The tests came back inconclusive. I think so. The tumor grew as rapidly as anything I have ever seen. And I cannot explain that.' `Am I still dying?'   
`I have to finish the cure. If I don't, the tumor will come back and kill you ultimately.'   
`How much longer?'  
`Three to four days; if your body holds on. This running does not do it good.' 

`Then I'll have to hold on a little while longer, won't I?' Mulder groaned as the elevator door opened and gave them access to the Emergency Room. Before they left the elevator, Mulder caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He was shocked to see how pale and exhausted he was. He didn't even know what day it was, or how long it had been now. He just knew he had placed his life in Morgan's hands and trusted no one but this doctor, for now. He knew now he had seen this man's face on the photo he had discovered a long time ago, right after his father's death. Morgan was a member of the consortium that had fallen apart a few years ago. He had survived. Who knows who else was still out there? 

A few cars were parked outside the ER. Morgan discovered one of his former colleagues guarding the exit. They only needed a few seconds to escape. He could take one of the unlocked vehicles. 

Morgan walked over the front desk.   
`Do you see that man waiting near the exit?' he asked the attending nurse. `Yes, sir?'   
`I think he carries a gun.'   
She frowned. `Sir?'  
`I am pretty certain that he does. He seems up to no good. Can you let your security take a look at him?' 

The nurse hesitated, left her desk and approached a security guard doing his rounds. After a short discussion, the guard walked over to the exit and spoke briefly with the man. The discussion became heated and then the security guard took the man by the arm and showed him to a small waiting room. 

`Good thinking,' Mulder smiled as they scurried towards the exit. Morgan glared around and walked to the first car. It was unlocked with keys in it. A few moments earlier he had seen a young couple walk in: the woman was having a baby. 

`Sorry,' Morgan mumbled out loud and went to fetch Mulder. He helped the agent in the passenger's seat, waited until he was buckled up and drove off. 

`Where to?' Mulder asked exhausted.   
`The Boston airport. I'm taking you home.' Morgan stared at his watch. It was nearly ten p.m. 

Mulder smiled. 

4 

At exactly 10.05 p.m., three Federal cars stopped at the ER of Lawrence General Hospital. Scully was the first rushing up and flashed her badge. `We are looking for my colleague, Special Agent Fox Mulder. He was in a car accident earlier. He was brought in here. He might be seriously ill.' 

`Let me get you a doctor,' the receptionist said friendly. A few minutes later, the attending doctor approached them. `Agent Mulder is my patient.'  
`Is he here?' Scully asked as her heart jumped. `Yes, he's upstairs for scans right now.' `Where?'  
`Let me show you.' 

Scully and Skinner passed a few men walking outside as they hurried towards the other hospital area, only to be told that Mulder had disappeared. The nurse bringing him for the scans explained that Dr. Morgan had taken him out of there. 

At the ER, the conclusions were easily drawn. Mulder was gone again. 

`Damn it!' Scully exclaimed as she walked into the room where the security agent was questioning the armed man. The man hardly looked up as she grabbed his ID and learned he was an employee of the Wild Oaks facility. 

`Where is Mulder?' she asked him.  
The man shrugged.  
`Were you here to kill him?'  
No answer.  
`Did Dr. Morgan take him?'  
The man looked up.   
`Were you planning on killing Dr. Morgan too?' The man merely smiled. 

`Get him out of here,' Skinner ordered. `We'll deal with him later.' 

As they returned to the ER, the attending doctor sought them out. `A car has been stolen a few minutes ago, belonging to a couple having a baby. The man just came back to lock the vehicle and found it gone.' `That must be them,' Skinner said. `Let's get an APB out on the license plate and vehicle. They can't have gone far.' 

`Damn it,' Scully spoke in despair, rubbing her eyelids. She was so tired, and they had been so close.  
`At least we know he's alive.'  
`But for how long? Why does Morgan drag him around?' `He is protecting him, Scully. Morgan wants him to live. It's obvious that the goon in there is not working alone. They want to kill Mulder.' `Why doesn't he contact us then?' Scully spoke desperately. Mulder should realize we're close.'  
`Perhaps he can't. The attending staff confirms Mulder is in bad shape. He might not even remember us.'   
`He would remember me,' Scully spoke strongly. `No matter what.' 

`My guess is that Morgan believes we are in DC. He is probably on his way there now.'  
`By car?'   
`Or by plane. He would choose a public means of travelling. If they were after him, taking the drive would be a huge risk. In public areas it would become difficult for them to do something.'   
`Boston airport?'  
`Most likely. The next red-eye perhaps.' `Can we find that out?'  
`I'll contact the airport. Let's go, Scully.' 

As they left the hospital, Scully could sense Skinner's concern for her partner. She was glad he was with her. She felt like falling apart. Only her bosses' strength kept her on her feet right now. Her fear for her partner's life was overwhelming. But there was hope now. Mulder had been seen alive. He was breathing, walking and talking when he should have died from that tumor. The fact that he was near her, gave her courage to continue the pursuit. 

But she knew that the ones who were after them too, could have drawn the same conclusions as Skinner had. They would be heading for the airport too, and any other public place Morgan might be. 

5 

Morgan stopped briefly at a gas station, walked into the twenty-four/seven-store and came back with food. Mulder was famished, as he had not eaten properly for days. He ate half of the sandwich Morgan handed him, drank a small bottle of water and added a few cookies to his meal. 

Morgan injected him with another course of RS-One. `You're feeling better, aren't you?' Morgan asked. Mulder nodded. `I don't know how.'   
`Dr. Geiger - my companion - had been given you extra doses of sedatives without my knowledge. It explains your exhaustion and fatigue. I usually gave you small doses to allow your body to rest. The sedatives are slowly becoming ineffective. The effects of RS-One will stay for a while longer though. You will still feel like crap.' 

Mulder smiled wryly. `Thanks for that witty diagnoses, doctor.' Morgan seemed pleased at his patient's reply. `You're welcome. Let's get going.' 

Mulder took a nap in the car as they approached Boston airport, eager to feel well enough to see Scully. He needed to tell her he was healing. That it had all been a bad dream. 

`We're here,' Morgan said, parking the car in front of the entrance. Mulder looked at him. `I remember Scully's number. Can we call her now?' 

6 

As they entered the airport, Morgan looked around for payphones, checking the boards at the same time. There was a red-eye to DC in about three hours from now. They could catch that one and be in DC before dawn. 

Mulder, rested and able to stand on his own two feet, pointed at the payphones in the far right corner of the nearly-empty, small airport. They could not stay in plain sight as long as they waited. Anyone coming in would spot them instantly. 

The agent felt discomforted by the idea that he was the prey and not the hunter. He would have given anything to be on a case right now, tracking down someone or something. He wanted it to be over. 

`There's a cop,' Mulder pointed at a uniformed man near the phones. `He can help us.'  
`No!' Morgan exclaimed, causing the cop to look around. `Why not?'   
`They have people everywhere. I don't want to trust anyone but your friends. We're getting on that flight, as planned.' 

His paranoia struck Mulder like a hammer. During his illness he had not had time to think about conspiracies and threats from the outside world. But now they were back again: into the world of paranoia. 

`You're right,' Mulder spoke softly. `Let's call Scully first.' `Can you call her? I will get the tickets.' Mulder's instincts told him not to leave Morgan alone but he was so desperate to talk to his partner he would have agreed to anything. Morgan gave him enough small change to talk for an hour or so. 

`Meet me at the bookstore near the restrooms,' Morgan said, pointing at a spot only a few feet away. `Keep an eye out. Take the gun.' Mulder hid the gun underneath his clothes, pushed two coins into the payphone and focused on remembering Scully's cell phone number. As he tapped in the numbers, he spotted the two men looking for Morgan. They had just entered the airport. Morgan did not see them. `Damn it,' Mulder whispered, hanging up. Calmly he strolled towards them, focusing on them, ready to turn, as they would spot him. 

Then Morgan turned his head. He saw Mulder. And he saw the two men who still did not see him. He walked across the hall to the restroom nearby Mulder and slipped in. Mulder followed. 

Morgan stared at the agent. `We're dead,' he groaned. `Get inside,' Mulder ordered, pointing at one of the small stalls after checking for other people inside. There were none. `Lift your feet up and stay where you are, no matter what.' 

Mulder stepped into one of the other stalls, resisted his tiredness and stepped onto the toilet seat. Then they waited. 

The door slammed open. Footsteps entered. He was alone. The stall doors were being pushed open. Mulder grabbed the gun and aimed it at the door. They came closer. They came closer. Mulder's body shivered. 

The following second, as the stall door suddenly slammed open, Mulder threw himself forward, against the attacker that had come for him. The opponent was knocked out instantly by the sudden response. 

Mulder held the gun up high. They were alone. Morgan left the stall.   
`The others will be here soon,' Mulder groaned tired, shaking his head. `We have to go.' 

As they approached the restroom door, it suddenly slammed open, sending Mulder backwards. The agent raised his gun, only to find something hitting him hard. The pain threw him off guard, sending the gun flying across the room. 

Morgan shouted. 

The second man struggled on top of Mulder, forcing the air out of his lungs with both hands. Mulder fought with all he had, which wasn't much. He could his mind slip away. 

A single shot rang out, throwing Groves off the agent. His hands let go. Mulder turned to face Morgan. He held Groves' stolen gun in his hand, killing his opponent with a single shot. 

`We have to get on that plane,' Morgan groaned, helping Mulder off the floor. The agent was at the end of his strength. `I can't,' Mulder shook his head. `I can't go on.' `You have to. Don't desert your friends now.' `You have to go alone. Bring RS-One to safety.' `I won't. Not without you.' 

Mulder swayed on his legs, only to collapse on the cold tiles. Morgan watched him worriedly. The agent struggled between consciousness and sleep, shaking his head to brush off the nausea. 

Morgan held onto the agent, grasping him tight. `You'll make it,' he swore.   
As they opened the door, Mulder knew Groves was still inside the airport. He was waiting for them, scanning the area. 

`Let's go,' Morgan ordered him. `Focus. He can't get to us past Customs. I'll leave you at the gate and get those tickets.' 

The two of them walked slowly across the area, towards Custom where security officers were scanning people's luggage. Here, family members said goodbye to their relatives. 

We're going to make it, Mulder thought wearily relieved. The following second he felt something strike him hard in the back of his left shoulder. And Morgan, who had held onto him on the other side, fell forward, sliding with him on the cold floor, still holding onto him. 

Mulder knew they had been shot. They had not even heard the shots ring out. Nobody had.   
He heard screams and shouts, and the sound of running footsteps. Another shot rang out, and then more screams. He couldn't tell where they came from. 

Morgan was lifted off his body. The doctor had taken a bullet between the shoulder blades, killing him instantly. His body had protected Mulder's into death. 

The agent was too weak to do anything. He was carefully turned on his side as someone put pressure to his shoulder. He winced at the hurt, struggling to free himself from whoever held onto him. 

And then he saw her, and he thought he was dreaming. It was Scully barking orders, putting pressure to his shoulder and demanding medical aid. She was there! 

He could not believe it.  
`Believe it,' she whispered, as she understood his disbelief. `It's me. I found you at last.'   
Her hand rested coolly against his face and as her skin touched his, he knew he had found safety again. 

`It is you,' he whispered.  
`I'll never let you alone again, I swear.' He held onto her, trusting her with his life. He had finally found his peace. 

7 

It all ended where it begun: within Scully's care and comfort. 

Mulder woke up more than a day later, as the operation repairing the damage to his shoulder had exhausted him it had taken him a while to snap out of the sedation.   
He found IV-bags dripping into his veins, and he knew the RS-One drug was administered too. He felt better, day by day. 

Scully moved as he stirred. She leaned over him, touching his skin as if she couldn't believe he was there, and alive. `I ached so much to see you,' she whispered, kissing him softly on the cheek, barely passing his lips. `I thought it was over.' He turned and they faced each other. `All that kept me up, was you.' `I know.' She stroked his unshaven chin and cheeks. 

`Am I still dying, Scully?'  
She shook her head. `No, you are not. I cannot explain what this drug did to you, Mulder, but it saved you. The tumor is gone.' `You need to give me that drug for another three days or so, or it will come back. Morgan told me that.'  
`We will. We're eager to get a lab working on it too.' 

`Morgan is dead, isn't he?' Mulder asked quietly. `Yes.'  
`He saved me, Scully. Over and over again. He never gave up.' `His drug will save many more. But we don't have much to go on. Wild Oaks burned down to the ground last night, as did the other facility. They destroyed all evidence.'  
`They still have RS-One. I'm sure of it.' `If that's the case, it will turn up somewhere. Until then, its contents will hopefully help a lot more people.'   
`That was Morgan's greatest wish,' Mulder spoke softly. `I would like to see that come out.'   
`It will. Some day.' 

Scully smiled as Skinner entered the room. Without the AD's hunch, they would have come too late. She had shot Groves before he was able to finish the job. Mulder had Skinner to thank for his life. 

The Assistant Director smiled as he saw Mulder's vivid eyes look at him gratefully. It had been a while since he had seen such a good thing. `Thank you, sir,' Mulder spoke.   
`You're welcome, Mulder.' 

`When can I get back to work?' Mulder asked hopefully, winking. 

The End   
  


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